WHAT’S IT ABOUT

Surviving on an isolated farm after a series of plagues and wars, a former soldier and her family make one last stand against a vicious militia that wants to take their land.

MOVIESinMO REVIEW

Sometimes movies try really hard to be different, but they end up feeling like things we’ve seen before. That’s exactly what happens with “40 Acres,” a new movie about surviving after the world falls apart. The film wants to stand out from other scary movies about the end times, but it doesn’t quite make it there. The story starts with some scary facts. A weird fungus killed almost every animal on Earth about fourteen years ago. When all the animals died, people had nothing to eat. This led to another civil war, and now everyone fights over farmland because growing food is the only way to stay alive. It sounds pretty terrible, and it is. We meet the Freeman family, who live on a farm in Canada. Hailey Freeman used to be a soldier, and she runs the farm as if it were still the army. She’s tough, really tough. Her husband, Galen, is a Native American man who seems more relaxed, but he knows how dangerous their world can be. Together, they take care of several kids, including Hailey’s grown-up son Emanuel, who’s about twenty years old. The movie starts with a bang. Some bad guys try to attack the farm, but the Freeman family is ready for them. They use guns, knives, and smart planning to fight off the attackers. It’s exciting to watch, and you can tell right away that this family knows how to protect themselves. They’ve done this before, and they’ll probably have to do it again. But after that exciting beginning, the movie slows down a lot. Most of the time, we just watch the family do their daily work. They plant crops, fix fences, and follow Hailey’s strict rules. She doesn’t trust anyone outside their family, and she has good reasons for that. Other people might try to steal their food or hurt them. The world is full of dangerous folks now, including some who eat other people to survive. Emanuel starts to feel trapped by all these rules. He’s a boy who’s curious and wants to see more of the world around him, and he’s not satisfied with living on their farm. One fine day, he sees a pretty girl named Dawn swimming in the river by their land. She is different from his family, and he can’t stop thinking about her. Here’s where the trouble starts. When Dawn shows up at their farm injured and asking for help, Emanuel wants her to stay. But Hailey says no way, and she doesn’t trust anyone, no matter who they are. This leads to a huge fight between mother and son. Emanuel believes his mother is being too cruel, and Hailey believes that if they let a stranger in, they would maybe be killed. The actress that plays Hailey, Danielle Deadwyler, really does a good job. She makes Hailey seem scary but loving at the same time. You get why she is so intense, but you also feel bad for Emanuel. The actor who plays Galen, Michael Greyeyes, also brings levity to the film. He gets into a frenzy when he finds old spices and gets frustrated when stuff goes to waste. These small details work to put the characters on the screen and make them feel fleshed out. The film looks good, too! The camera work shows off the beautiful countryside, but also makes everything feel dangerous and dark. When night comes, it’s really hard to see what’s happening, which makes the scary parts even scarier. Sometimes this works well, but other times it’s just confusing. The most significant issue with “40 Acres” is that it resembles too many movies and television shows we have already experienced. It mimics the archetype of “The Walking Dead” or “The Last of Us,” in that we have families trying to survive and to fend off bad people. The concept of a domineering parent who forbids all outsiders from joining their group is standard fare for this type of storyline. So is the rebellious kid who breaks the rules and causes problems. The movie also wants to talk about serious topics like racism and how Black and Native American families work together. Hailey’s family has been on this land for a long time, ever since her ancestors escaped from slavery during the Civil War. But the film doesn’t really dig deep into these ideas. It mentions them and then moves on to more fighting and survival stuff. Another issue is the pacing. The middle part of the movie drags on and on. We watch the family do normal things for way too long before anything exciting happens again. It’s not until near the end that the real bad guys show up, and by then, some viewers might be getting bored. When the action does come back, it’s pretty brutal. The Freeman family has to fight against cannibals who want to take over their farm. These scenes are intense and well-made, but they don’t feel as fresh or surprising as they should. We’ve seen similar fights in lots of other movies. The director, R.T. Thorne, clearly knows how to make movies look good and create tension. He’s good at staging fight scenes and making the farm feel like both a safe home and a dangerous place. But he doesn’t quite know how to make his story feel new and different from all the other end-of-the-world movies out there. “40 Acres” isn’t a bad movie, but it’s not great either. It has some good acting, nice camera work, and a few exciting moments. But it also feels too familiar and moves too slowly in the middle. If you really love movies about surviving after disasters, you might enjoy it. But if you’re tired of these kinds of stories, this one probably won’t change your mind. The film tries to be more than just another scary survival story, but it doesn’t quite succeed. It is caught in a limbo of wanting to be thoughtful and wanting to be exciting, and it does not accomplish either thing perfectly. If only it had a little more originality and better pacing, “40 Acres” could have been a little more special and a little less just okay, okay, okay.

OUR RATING – A SURVIVAL 6

MEDIA

• Genre – Action
• Street date
• Digital –July 22, 2025
• Blu-Ray/DVD – September 23, 2025
• Video – 1080p
• Screen size – 2.39:1
• Sound – English: Dolby Digital 5.1
• Subtitles – English SDH, Spanish

Extras

• Deleted Scenes