Till the World Ends (2022)

It's good, but...

Given the limited budget, this is extremely well-made, with obvious passion invested by everyone involved, which I've come to expect from this group. The cinematography and directing are wonderful with fantastic performances pulled out of talented actors, the music selections ar great, and the German subtitles are first rate, so I hear.

It's great to see Art Pakpoom in a leading role again, and Michael Kiettisak puts in another top-tier performance - he may be the most underrated actor in BL - I'm still haunted by his horrifying abuse victim in Call It What You Want.

The story, however, prevents these ingredients from reaching their full potential. It perhaps tries to do too much - social commentary, messaging about how short life is, wanting to be a '90s Gregg Araki film, horror, adventure, romance, comedy...

So while I appreciate how well-done this is, the big question is, did I enjoy watching it? Not really. It's very violent, it's a bit all-over-the-place as a genre, and commentary about the corruption in society and the human condition are either extremely unsubtle (like who gets to go to the bunker - that was hammer-over-the-head commentary), or undermined by the contrasting trio of antagonists. Because the villains were all psychopaths, they contributed no meaning. If we're looking at different choices in how to spend the last two weeks of your life, basically good people versus people who want to violently murder as many people as possible before they die says nothing. There is nothing about them identify with, you can have no sympathy for them, they have no point to make, they're just evil and must be destroyed.

Why not have people who are so greedy that they steal and accumulate wealth, or so desire power that they try to rule everyone else? Or even if they had wanted to have sex with as many people as possible before the worlds ends, that would be relatable, for sure if everyone looks like the cast.

So as a result, the series gets bogged down in with a large amount of screentime being chewed up by horrible people who have nothing to do but have surprisingly graphic and sweaty sex (probably the most realistic sex scene ever in a BL) and kill people, which they do, a lot (unfortunately the killing, not the sex).

In addition, instead of examining how impending doom might affect the course of romance, the main pair fall into a depressingly conventional seme-uke pattern, where Art acts like a Victorian twelve-year-old, when even a Victorian twelve-year-old would throw up her hands, say 'f$%& propriety', and want to bang Golf and his brother 24/7 if the world were ending. But Art acts like a kiss on the cheek in a completely abandoned world is scandalous. Art has no agency and is helpless and useless, requiring Golf to do everything for him.

Everything is too predictable, and you end up stressed out knowing characters you don't want to die are going to die, stupid decisions to be made are telegraphed - decisions that are inexplicably out of character, which is lazy writing.

And to get it out of the way, there was an incredible amount of criticism of the faulty astrophysics - if the moon were on a collision course with the Earth, the Earth's gravity would break it up, and there would be horrendous natural disasters, so this is too unrealistic. THAT'S the line you're going to draw in the sand? There are BLs where one of the main pair is dead, or a vampire, nobody sweats after running a mile through Bangkok in the afteroon while wearing a wool suit, every male student at the school is gay and rich, you can turn a straight guy gay if you trip and have him catch you - but not having earthquakes and tsunamis in a project that likely had a 5-figure budget is unacceptable? Anyway, the moon crashing into the earth is symbolic and metaphorical - it doesn't need to be realistic.

So do I recommend this? Yes, unless you don't like gore. All the positives I mentioned at the top make it worth your time - this isn't a rehashed plot, it's not full of tropes and cliches, and you get to watch very attractive people who can both act and look great with their shirts off. If that seemed like a lot of criticism, it's because I think this could have been one of the best BLs of all time instead of merely good. While the characters are largely more appealing, this doesn't quite have the polished genius of Call It What You Want.

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Another Anusorn frustrating story

All this saga started, if you remember, after Director Anusorn directed "2Moons2". Despite the entire new cast of mostly unknown and inexperienced actors, some ups and downs in the series and having to waste 4 episodes so viewers could be reminded of what happened on the original "2Moons", the story was more of less successful and it gave us BL fans, Din and Joong. But, when the show was over everyone was waiting anxiously for season 3 but the company in charge decided to botch the project, yet again, by creating a musical group without Din and later getting rid of director Anusorn just to "flex their muscles" and show they had the power to do that. Director Anusorn went on to create "Call It What You Want" and "Call It What You Want 2" as a response, where he promised to expose the darkest secrets of Thai's BL industry... however, his productions fell short as he lost track of the initial plot/storyline and gave us some choppy story with some more or less disappointing acting and a villain who never gets punished.

Well, he did it again! This time with "Till the World Ends" and here's why:

a) The science behind the plot: OK, let's get this out of the way... scientifically, the Moon crashing into Earth is possible (it will be complicated as the moon is tidally locked with our planet and it's actually moving away from us every year) but, even before it crashes, it will bring immense consequences from the minute the moon begins getting closer to us... even Jim Carrey's movie, Bruce Almighty, showcases this when he tries to seduce Jennifer Aniston's character by pulling the moon closer to make the scene more romantic... instead, the next day, the news from severe flooding in some parts of the world begin to spread because the moon is responsible for the low and high tide of our oceans... even that silly movie pointed that out, but, OK moving on. In addition, if the moon crashes with our planet and nothing will be left (as the official government announcement keeps telling us all the series) there is no need for bunkers as NOTHING will survive... even if they do survive the impact, explosion, lack of moon to regulate day/night (which helps with our sleep patterns), etc., there will be no water, animals, plants and what, the bunkers will be floating in space if Earth is totally destroyed? Don't think so...
So, leaving the nerdy part out, and ASSUMING the bunkers could be a realistic possibility and ASSUMING that there will be some solid ground for them to step out of the bunkers after the crash... let's move on.

b) The plot/storyline: This story begins with the announcement of the end of the world and with Golf (played by Best) and his jealousy, lousy temper, annoying personality, and plain idiocy taking center stage throughout the whole series. He just blatantly attacks and nearly kills Art (played by Art... so original!) and then gets a guilty conscience and tries to help him recover only to fall in love with him. His older brother Gus (played by Michael) is in jail but is always Golf's moral compass and voice of reason. The end of the world drives most of the plot in the story as it becomes the centerpiece of the Golf-Art relationship as they navigate between staying at Golf's apartment while Art recovers, then Art discovering the truth and very quickly forgiving Golf, both living under the threat of the gang, Gus appearing after being let go or escaping (can't recall which one it was), all trying to reach a bunker in the Laos-Thailand border but taking a detour to see if Art's family is still home and then everybody dying before the actual end of the world leaving Gus and Art to cry, kiss and be killed by the moon.

The plot was original but the storyline began declining after episode 2-3 with very slow progression, barely any character development and violence... lots of unnecessary violence... almost to the point that the gratuitous BL steamy scenes we got between the 2 bad guys (Long and Joke, played by Knight and Songklod) and by Golf and Art felt somewhat out of context... the bad guys brutally kill someone and then turn around and start having sex or Golf brutally kills Long in the last episode, they witness Joke kill himself with a gun, and they (Gulf and Art) take a shower, go to the roof of the house and have sex. I've never rejected a NC scene in a BL story, but even these scenes felt wrong after I just witness all the killings, blood everywhere, an eyeball being stabbed and pulled out of its socket, suicide, Joke picking up pieces of Long's face after being killed by Golf, etc., the graphic nature of all this violence was shocking and almost nauseating. There is no explanation for the bad gang to be hanging around the apartment complex... they could've gone to a bunker, they could've gone to another apartment complex looking for more food, take a car, something... instead they hang around like vultures but don't do much. Golf kills a gang member in the early episodes and that sets the "we are getting revenge and killing them" mood, plus we don't get much of their backstory so we just know they are psychopaths who instead of trying to save themselves by reaching a bunker, decided to stay and kill as many people as they can before all dying courtesy of Gus and Golf.

In addition, the storyline also began including all these political and social messages, which we've seen in stories like GMMTV's "Not Me", and in both cases, they waste time talking too much about human rights and equality that it almost becomes boring when we have to listen to the same message. We know there is corruption, racism, discrimination, social and income inequality... no need to remind us every 2-3 episodes.
And, Art never really gets any closure... it's all Golf! He gets his brother back, he loses his brother, he falls in love with Art and lives his last days with him. Art wants to visit his family to see if they are still there and then go to the bunker to reunite with them in case they made it to the bunker... but he is the one who never makes it... this storyline was left to die as all centered on Golf.

c) The acting: Michael is the saving grace as his acting is the most memorable of all the cast with poignant moments in both dramatic and funny scenes. It is nice to see Art get a lead role as well, especially when he is on screen as a very marginal side character in "Between Us" and was affected after the scandal with Mew Suppasit after filming "What the Duck" in 2018 resulting on him getting harassed online by Mew fans and not many jobs afterwards (just look it up online if you don't know anything about it)... too bad his acting and Best's acting wasted some golden opportunities to truly deliver in some of the most emotional scenes of the show. As I said before, Art forgives Golf quite easily after nearly killing him and Golf seems to be 100% straight at the beginning, so his change of heart towards Art seems a bit sudden. Both lead actors do a decent job for moments, but there were just too many things for them to deal with... Golf's initial actions, Art's feelings before and after finding out the truth, all the deaths they had to witness, going to die, etc., so it was just too much for them to navigate through.

In the end, director Anusorn is becoming a synonym of frustrating. He thinks and develops some interesting ideas but so far both "Call It What You Want 1 and 2" and this series, end up falling short of my expectations.

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