Justin Lin’s Last Days Gets 27% Rotten Tomatoes Score

Competing with multiple major releases this weekend, Justin Lin’s Last Days is likely to struggle with disappointing initial reviews. Lin is the director of Fast Five, widely regarded as the best movie in the Fast & Furious franchise, as well as The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift, Fast & Furious 6, F9: The Fast Saga, and Star Trek Beyond.

But Lin ventured into new territory with the docudrama adventure movie Last Days, written by Ben Ripley and starring Sky Yang. Last Days follows a missionary who travels to the North Sentinel Island in the Indian Ocean, intending to convert the people who live there, while the authorities try to prevent potential damage. It is based on the true story of missionary John Allen Chau.

However, this approach to a biopic has apparently failed. Last Days currently has a 27% critics’ approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes, aggregated from 22 reviews so far. This makes it the third-lowest-rated movie on Rotten Tomatoes associated with Lin, just above Space Jam: A New Legacy (with Lin as executive producer) and Annapolis (director).

Last Days premiered at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival and was reviewed by Patrice Witherspoon for ScreenRant. Witherspoon and other critics note that the movie does not have a clear purpose in its attempt to remain neutral on the subject matter. “Last Days is as frustrating to watch as it is to try to understand this avoidable tragedy,” says Witherspoon.

When Lin’s most well-known and liked movies are stylish action flicks, part of the beloved Star Trek and Fast & Furious franchises, trying to adapt a story like this into an effective biopic may seem like something outside his range. Star Trek Beyond and Fast Five are among his top-rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes. The highest-rated is Hollywood Chinese, with a perfect 100%, in which Lin appears as himself.

The risk of Last Days is so far not paying off, and the box office will get even more competitive in the coming weeks as the top predictions for 2026 Oscars nominations arrive in theaters. Black Phone 2, Tron: Ares, Good Fortune, and One Battle After Another are among the biggest titles at the box office right now, occupying the attention of Last Days’ potential audience.

Last Days is also sharing its release date with Springsteen: Deliver Me From Nowhere, Blue Moon, and Regretting You, the former two of which have possible Best Actor nominations to rely on and the latter a BookTok author’s dedicated fanbase. Last Days ultimately seems doomed to fail, but fans will likely still return for the Fast Five director’s next exciting action entry.