Sarah (Azura Skye) is pregnant. Unfortunately the father of the child is dead but that is the least of her problems. Sarah is also the first person to be pregnant in the last 15 years and as such, there are a lot of people who are after her and her baby. Also figure in that she must leave the shelter of the underground house where she has been living due to the drought. She is aided in her journey through the post apocalyptic landscape by Michael (Joshua Leonard) who has devoted his life after the nuclear holocaust to carrying on his father’s radio broadcast to give the survivers hope. Due to drought, Sarah has left her home is on a journey to find a safer place to deliver and rear her child.

The acting in 20 Years After is solid. I was a little disappointed in Azura Skye who spent much of the story just sort of staring off into space. Joshua Leonard of Blair Witch fame was good as Michael, the post Armageddon disc jockey. I felt however that the best performance was provided by Reg E Cathey as Samuel. He played a college professor with a whimisical personality that came across as very natural and convincing.

The set pieces were convincing. They were not the cgi overrun metropolis shots of I am Legend but of course that is not to be expected. The Director did a good job at taking seemingly abandoned locations and dressing them up a bit to fit the film. It worked pretty well and the end result was that you could feel the desperation and emptiness as the characters struck out on their journey.

Presented in 16:9 widescreen, the movie transfer looked pretty good. The visuals were clear and crisp. The sound was in 5.1 Digital surround sound and was of above average quality. There was very little distortion and dialogue was crystal.

Unfortunately I did not have access to the bonus materials so I cannot comment on them although they seemed to consist of pretty standard offerings. The behind the scenes featurette showed promise as I find them fascinating usually.

20 Years After is a decent film. I thought a bit more action in the first half would have kept the movie flowing better as I found the pacing to be a little slow towards the middle. did catch myself glancing at the time once or twice during it but it never hit levels where I was begging for it to wrap up. The bit with Michael running the radio station even though he didn’t know if anyone was still listening reminded me quite a bit of the 80’s movie Night of the Comet. I recommend this movie as a rental for fans of the Post-Apocalyptic genre but would recommend watching it before purchasing as I did not see a lot of rewatchability to it.

Bonus Features:

Director’s Commentary
Behind the Scenes Featurette
Spanish Subtitles

20 Years After is available now, courtesy of MTI Video

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