Really good, but...

Rating: 8/10 (21 January 2008)

It's a really good movie in many ways, but there are a couple of big problems that nag at me... keeps me from putting it way up there. For one, a huge amount of hype about how "evil" the main badguy is. yeah, he's an evil dude... but nothing out of the ordinary. As a matter of fact, his goofy haircut nearly ruined the whole menacing effect for me... it was so distracting I could barely get it out of my mind throughout his scenes. But a very solid performance by everybody... I enjoyed a lot of it. Especially the husband wife scenes... they were refreshing with the level of respect and understanding they had for each other, despite their odd imperfections. They obviously loved each other a lot, I'd say.
But again... main bad guy... coulda been scarier and more menacing. I'm sorry. That sticks out as the main problem with this film. I was so ready for the gas attendant to shoot him dead and end his magical hard to kill reign, it wasn't even funny. And for some reason I could totally picture it happening. I don't think the audience was ever supposed to feel like the little guys had a chance... but they totally did! Super bad guy was too careless in many situations, imo.
Anyway, good movie... very different. Bad guy not bad enough (close, but...). And the death of a major character was extremely under-developed. And the ending was at first shaky, but I think the dream recounting made up for it.