I wanted to like this, but somehow it... never quite seems to get going. A few things happen, and then just like that it's already over. One would think, [spoiler]considering what a central figure he is, the grandpa's death[/spoiler] is some sort of key turning point, yet it manages to feel utterly weightless. Similarly, [spoiler]the separation of the two friends[/spoiler] isn't as dramatic as it ought to be either, perhaps because [spoiler]their relationship is never built up quite that well in the first place, nor do we really get a sense of where things would go[/spoiler]. While it does get portrayed on several occasions, there isn't that much actual sense of "inequality and prejudice" either, which ends up being simply frustrating. My feeling is it's because many of the surrounding elements are also either weightless themselves, or just unrealistic and nonsensical.

Coming of age stories shouldn't necessarily be lukewarm and bad - all they need is a point to make at the end, or an actual story to tell. Here, I was missing both. There is some nice atmosphere, where we might indeed feel like we're taken back in time, to some degree at least, but it's just not enough. For something with armageddon in its title, I expected an impact: for better or worse, the end of the world seems to have been cancelled, this time.