Not much going for it...

Rating: 3/10 (27 May 2012)

I have not seen anything from the series 'Lost' which made J.J. Abrams famous so I didn't come into this movie with high expectations and it's a good thing I didn't either. I just found so much of the action sequences flat, the characters weren't really all that engaging and the story pretty much non-existent. It had really good potential early on with the train crash and played the mystery up fairly well and then the payoff was just not there at all. So much of the action and the entire movie for that matter happens in darkness which makes it easy for F/X department but just made it confusing and tiring for me. The dialogue was hard to pick up, it seemed like the kids were mumbling a lot or something, and what lines you did hear was pure corn. I really have no idea why this was a period piece set in the late '70's either, there was really no reason for it and there was little there to indicate it was the '70's. There was a 'Super8' camera in use and they had to wait for the film to be developed but the 3 day wait wasn't much a of a plot device. Just a really poor movie with very little story, which basically hacked 'E.T' for inspiration. I was expecting something more from a Spielberg production. I get the feeling that Abrams was offered a shot at making a movie but he didn't really have much of an idea what to do for a movie. Very disappointing.