I'm really just trying to save other sci-fi fans from wasting their time on this one. This is probably the worst sci-fi I've ever seen. It could really use a plot (why did they leave the city? where were they trying to get to?). One hundred and nine minutes is way too long. Many takes just go on and on pointlessly. I'd say edit to thirty minutes, better yet, just make it a TV episode of The Survivors. Finally, there is some pointless background conversation that receives subtitles, but other important conversations don't get translated at all. I gave it three stars instead of one because the acting is very good and there is one really good music track while they are at the train station.

In an undefined time, the environment has been totally destroyed and now the water is contaminated and the animals have been burned. Georges Laurent (Daniel Duval) travels with her wife Anne Laurent (Isabelle Huppert), their teenage daughter Eva (Anaïs Demoustier) and their son Ben (Lucas Biscombe) from the city to their cabin in the countryside. On the arrival, they find that intruders have broken in the house, and one stranger kills George.Anne, Eva and Ben wander through the village asking for shelter and supplies for their acquaintances, but they refuse to help them. They reach an abandoned barn and spend the night inside. On the next morning, they meet a teenage boy and they walk together to a train station, where they find other survivors. Together, they wait for the train expecting to go to a better place in the middle of the chaos. "Le temps du loup", a.k.a. "Time of the Wolf" is a pessimist and depressive view by Michael Haneke of a society without rules, basically the end of the civilization. The story begins with the uncomfortable violence of "Funny Games", with the stranger unexpectedly shooting Georges. The plot is totally different from the post-apocalyptic view of Hollywood movies and there are scenes hard to be seen. Isabelle Huppert and Anaïs Demoustier have extraordinary performances. Hope that the world never comes to this point, probably is what many viewers will think watching this movie. My vote is seven.Title (Brazil): Not Available

I would have to say that you either like Michael Haneke (The White Ribbon, Funny Games, Cache) or you don't. His films are dark and depressing, raw and emotional, and, many times, they leave you clueless as to what is going on. Yes, they are cerebral, and a welcome change from the mindless movies with frat boys and fart jokes.Any chance to see Isabelle Huppert (8 Women, The Piano Player) is a good thing.It is a post apocalyptic world. We never really know why. Maybe a virus of some sort. It is a chance to think about how people will act when there is not law, and how they will cling to the slightest hope for survival. Again, Haneke provides the framework and lets us make up our own minds about how it ends.

Drab, pointless, humorless, dreary, are some words that come to mind quickly. The first ten minutes are shock cinema at its finest, but after that it's a more realistic-than-thou, account of an end of the world scenario. What conclusions does it come to? People are mean, racist, xenophobic, and greedy, without social structures to guide them, but maybe, just maybe, if they cling to their humanity and mercy, things could get better, the world can be reborn, etc.The little boy character was trite, running away, at just the right moment when the paced lagged, cus thats what traumatized little boys in these kinds of movies do. There's some nice cinematography, of darkness, with some fires burning, not very subtle symbolism, but nothing in this was. It's less pedantic than "Funny Games", but not as clever. It's bleak, and desperate, and dismal. A live horse is killed on screen, for our viewing pleasure! At least John Waters had his animals f*&$ed before he slaughtered them.Does just being the opposite of the way, Hollywood would film something, make it automatically artful and meaningful? Sure it's more realistic than Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, but it's themes of desperation, human redemption, and survival, are the same. Just less entertaining. A real life disaster, would indeed probably go down with people crowded in barns, hating each other trying to make due, but so what? That's just a premise, not a story. The final scene of the train in motion, suggests, things get better, but as to why is just as mysterious as what caused the catastrophe in the first place. And ultimately, just as purposeful, to begin and end the movie, that's all.This wasn't very original, provocative, or challenging. It's intense at times but mostly lethargic, and begs by its somberness to be taken seriously, without anything at all serious to contribute.