'Scorched Earth' Trailer: Gina Carano Is A Post-Apocalyptic Bounty Hunter

Tell me if you've heard this one before. A grizzled badass without a lot to say wanders the wasteland of the post-apocalypse, dispensing justice against armies of bandits and slowly learning to care again after encountering someone who melts their icy heart. That's the premise of many movies and it is also the premise of Scorched Earth, an upcoming sci-fi action movie that looks like it crawled out of a mid-'90s VHS bargain bin.

But there's nothing wrong with trash when it's delicious, committed, interesting trash! So as you prepare to watch the Scorched Earth trailer, ask yourself one question: is this trash worthy of your time?

If the trailer is any indication, Scorched Earth will not be great trash, which is a shame. There's nothing wrong with "post-apocalyptic western about a lady bounty hunter killing everybody on sets that look like they were built for pennies," but it requires a screen presence with more charisma than former MMA fighter Gina Carano. Sure, Stephen Soderbergh built an entire film around her with the very good action movie deconstruction Haywire, but every one of her movie roles since then has been nothing short of disastrous. She's a black hole made of wood in Fast and Furious 6, lost in a cast defined by their movie star magnetism. She's a sour note in the otherwise delightful Deadpool, bringing the film to a screeching halt whenever she opens her mouth. While she is undeniably an impressive physical force, dialogue has never sounded right in her mouth and the Scorched Earth trailer seems to cut around as much of her dialogue as possible and for good reason. It sounds bad. Really bad.

But the movie surrounding Carano looks like it could have its fair share of low-budget charms, including a hammy villain and some very stupid-looking action. Director Peter Howitt (who has directed everything from Antitrust to Johnny English) isn't being shy with the western imagery and it's a nice, if somewhat obvious, touch. This could be fun! But the trailer definitely makes you wish they had spring for Milla Jovovich, the queen of this kind of cinematic junkfood.

Scorched Earth opens in limited release and arrives on VOD on February 2, 2018. Here's the official synopsis:

Earth has suffered an environmental collapse; the air became dangerous to breathe, the water became toxic, and billions of people died. Generations later, mankind has finally re-established a rudimentary society, in an attempt to pick up the pieces that continue to blister in the sun. Attica Gage (Gina Carano) is a bounty hunter with a chance at the bounty of a lifetime: to bring down the ruthless outlaw – Elijah Jackson. Gage infiltrates Jacksons gang, and everything is going to plan until she meets a slave girl who reminds her of her dead sister. With her loyalty to only herself now tested, Gage learns there might be more to life than survival.