Shaky camera - not a problem. Awful script and production value - BIG problem!

Rating: 1/10 (21 June 2008)

From the start of this film, I was never fond of the filming direction whereby the director opted to use the live "shaky camera" style. However it did bring a more refreshing approach to films of such which I have never experienced before. The first person perspective of the camera allowed the audience to witness a more grand scale of the action sequences and really made them as if they were actually there. It's a neat idea but unfortunately other parts of the film fall short, way too short and hasn't helped this at all.
The dialogue in this film is absolutely abysmal. One of the cast plays as the camera man and films all the way throughout the film trying to capture everything as evidence and we, the audience see through the camera. Nearly everything he says is either unhelpful to other people, repetitive in remarks (Oh my God etc...) and mostly it's bloody annoying to listen to. One would definitely not shout out stupid comments in an awkward situations, yet the guy keeps on yapping again, again and again. I understand the producers wants the audience to feel immersed in the film. However you'll never achieve that with this broken dialogue! What can I say about the casts? Poor, very poor. You sometimes want to ask whether these people can really act. The simple answer is no they can't, especially Michael Stahl-David. Some of the face expressions they pull out at certain moments are just unnatural. However this is understandable since most of the time their speeches are "Oh my God", "Oh Sh*t", "Oh this, that and the other." Last but not least, the script is awful. There is absolutely no explanation whatsoever on the background of events that happened during the film. (You'll understand once you watch it.) Unjustifiable reasoning of action taken by the main casts is also a major problem of this film. A person in a right state of mind would never do things as the casts have done in the film. The script is a lousy way to produce yet another hyped pile of garbage. And the ending? Easy to understand but unexplained in other areas of the film.
This film is by all means poor. I can't believe why some people regarded this film as "brilliant" because I don't see one bit of brilliance in this rubbish. The casts can't act, the dialogue is badly written, the script is senseless and above all they (the production team) threw in a shaky camera to help all the causes. Bravo!