So much potential...wasted

Rating: 5/10 (13 April 2012)

I will preface with the statement that I am not a Whedon fanboy nor am I heavy into the sci-fi/fantasy genres that he tends to delve into regularly. That being said I LOVE a good sci-fi or fantasy film. Some things Whedon has done I like others, such as Buffy are horrid. Buffy was the Twilight of its day.
This film had a lot of buzz for quite some time. The trailer was promising. Everything I heard was that it was going to be an awesome trip. Sadly I dragged my wife along, putting stock in the, usually right, metacritic rating of 73. Apparently the critics have drank the kool aid just like the fanboys.
This movie was borderline awful. There are several key elements that hurt it for me. First of all it thinks it's winking throughout the film to the audience and being coy and tongue and cheek. I found this to come off as generally just dumb and unoriginal. A film that does that ten times better is Tucker and Dale vs. Evil. That was a much better horror film with it's bag of parody and humor added in. Aside from some of the humor not working, some of it did, some of it just felt ill timed. I found the humor to be more appropriate in the settings with the control guys overlooking things and the office pool and all of that set against the backdrop of horror. That was some nice levity. Plus, who doesn't love Richard Jenkins and Bradley Whitford?
Failed attempts at humor aside I just didn't feel like it really pulled off any of it's unique elements well. It had this great idea. Take the horror movie, turn it on it's head. You have this company who controls things. This with another twist of they all do this in fear so they can please some ancient beings. All rather original concepts and all framed in an interesting way. Yet the cohesion between these elements felt not only somewhat forced at times but would completely go off the rails at points. Once the purge button was hit I felt like it had metaphorically purged what hope I had left for the film. It's too bad such an opportunity was squandered.
What I would have changed is have a lot less build up of the -wink, wink- horror clichés. And once the two get in the "building" or whatever, that should have been where it got really good. For a few moments it did. I liked the part where they saw the various creatures and then it zooms out. Loved it. Then they should've had to figure out how to get out of the labyrinth with the Staples "That was easy." button right in front of them. That could have been much more interesting and a better way to keep things thrilling. There would have been plenty of time to do so if the tongue and cheek beginning had been cut down. And lastly I'm glad they let the ancient beings out. But it should've ended with some The Fog-esque idea where it zooms out and shows these beings coming out and overtaking the world. A nice few minute prologue showing the overcoming of the Earth. But like I said, this opportunity was squandered. Too bad...too bad.