Storyline falls flat, really well done, great imagery, depends which way you look at it.

Rating: 8/10 (2 July 2011)

I have mixed emotions about this film, it was very J.J. Abramsy, very Losty. Like Lost, it had a really intriguing mystery, but kills it with a really bland/generic conclusion - a monster whose product of havoc and destruction is all you see until the very end, only turns out to be exactly what you expect. Just like the end of Lost.
Acting and characters are awesome. The group of young teenagers is the classic group of '80s kids as portrayed in '90s teen movies; the fat one, the dorky one, the tall insecure one with glasses, the crazy one with bucked teeth, and the normal intelligent protagonist. It's interesting that this consistent theme from teen movies is used in a predominately adult movie. It's really cool to see the development of their friendships and the strain on their relationships the whole situation causes.
In this movie, events are so unbelievably over the top. The train crash (a train crashes) is super intense. at first it is awesome. it's done so well, you feel like you are there. Literally. You are part of the group of kids standing at the abandoned station. You feel fear and the reality of the situation. (This may spoil it for you) At first, the train hit's a car a bit of a way from where the kids are standing, next thing you know carriages are derailing, then things start exploding, things start flying everywhere - all around the kids. This goes on for 1 minute and 30 seconds from impact to last flying exploding carriage. On the one hand it destroyed the reality of it all and just blew it out of proportion (all of the kids were absolutely fine, obviously), but on the other, it made it comical, I was laughing pretty hard. It seems, rather than to remove it from reality and what is possible, to move it beyond reality. Like a dream. It depicts wild imagination like The Bridge to Terabithia, but in a subtle way. It feels like a really vivid dream, with lots of emotions and stuff; you think it's real but then this super crazy thing happens and your like woah dude. This one scene basically represents the whole movie in that sense.
Tere are a lot of clichés, like in Lost, but J.J Abrams makes it cool. He perfects the clichés. He makes you appreciate clichés. It doesn't really matter whether or not something is possible because who cares? J.J. Abrams certainly doesn't.
It's weird. I was actually going to give it a kind of bad/mixed review, but I had an awakening mid third paragraph. Definitely go see this. Preferably in a cinema. Just for the train crash.
8? 9?/10