Don't demand too much and you'll be entertained

Rating: 5/10 (17 May 2008)

This is not an awful movie; it just isn't all that good either. I was ignorant of all the hype preceding its opening and had not watched an episode of "Lost" since the first season.
So, I came into the movie expecting nothing more than a mildly scary horror film (PG-13 rating) executed with some novelty.
On that level I was entertained. All these sorts of movies require the human characters to make grotesquely bad decisions in order to relentlessly expose themselves to the main character: the monster. I didn't mind the obvious stupid errors: the "heart throb" not only survives being impaled on a piece of rebar, but then runs all over Manhattan and absorbs frantic hugs from her man. I didn't even feel cheated by the lack of story telling. The movie does nothing at all to explain those things that attacked our "heroes" in the subway tunnel. The movie does nothing at all to explain its ending, both endings. Did they die? What fell in the sea? I was mildly entertained for an hour and half and that was all I asked from this film.
But, when the credits rolled I realized that the movie had never winked at me. Was I supposed to take all this fluff seriously? Was it supposed to an American Godzilla, an allegory of 9/11? Then, why waste almost twenty minutes setting up normalcy before things go crazy when Mr. Spielberg used half the time and been twice as convincing with E.T.? So, just watch and don't ask too many questions. You'll have some minor fun. Which is exactly the definition of the average film of any genre.