CG effects and cheap scares are getting very old...

Rating: 3/10 (21 May 2008)

I have never been a huge fan of Josh Hartnett but I will give him credit for doing an above average job in the role of his character, in other words, without Hartnett...this movie would have completely bombed. There are way too many 'cheap scares', for instance, a victim is walking at a distance and all of the sudden there is a black figure that flashes by on the screen (very closely I might add) accompanied by a thunderous thud noise thats incorporated to create the grisly 'cheap scare' that usually will get a jump out of people (people that haven't seen this trick a million times before that is). There are a lot of questions left unanswered to me, such as, what is the vampires' business in Barrow, Alaska? (Besides the 30 days of night thing which I can understand), is the rest of the world in chaos because of these vamps? I would have appreciated a little more of a background on their history so I could fully understand the whole spectrum of things, but maybe I'm asking for too much huh? There are too many people being introduced (without names of course) which further complicates the character development issue. We just see their faces and some brief dialogue but for the most part these people are introduced so quickly that when they do get attacked, we don't really have anything to care for them about, kinda like their just cardboard cutouts being sucked dry of their blood. The CG effects are just ridiculous, they are in an abundance folks! I in short did not find this movie A. scary B. suspenseful or C. intriguing by any standard, the only one thing holding the reins together for this film is, yes folks, Josh Hartnett. 3 out of 10 stars because of Hartnett's performance alone.