A decent premise - and a game Gina Carano - get left in the dust kicked up by "Scorched Earth," a dull, draggy post-apocalyptic western set in the not-too-distant, environmentally toxic future.
Howitt loses the battle with his limited budget and inexperience with B-movie ruin, keeping the end of the world flavorless, anticlimactic, and wasteful with the few good ideas that pop up as the story unfolds.
"Scorched Earth" is the sort of divertingly hokey post-apocalyptic B-movie that would have amused undiscriminating Blockbuster Video renters a generation ago, and now might pass muster as the pilot for a weekly SyFy series.