What happens is it fails

Rating: 1/10 (14 June 2008)

This was the first time I ever walked out during a movie, I was literally disgusted with the script, the characters and the plot. Its hard to believe the characters are so shallow, so uninteresting. It's even hard to believe that Mark Wahlberg was once nominated for an Oscar. I don't think actors just turn bad which is why again this failure of a film rests on M. Night Shyamalan (MNS) Apparently I was told that Mark's character was imitating childish behaviour. Untrue, everyone in the film has half panics to something that should terrify them, his teaching as a tutor is laughable. I have met some pretty weak willed people but even they know when to put their foot down or speak of said jargon in a downsized and professional manner. And that's just him, don't get me started on the military guy or his wife and that dam caller subplot.
It was interesting till people suddenly stood still, walking backwards and then committing suicide, it was actually funny in the unintentional sense. I don't laugh during suicide but when you see one person drop and someone is in despair only to see another and another, I just end up laughing and had a image of someone singing its raining men. For some reason MNS feels its best to show a guy who activated a lawn mower and let it run him down. Apparently I'm meant to be horrified but that's the failure of these deaths. They lack the horror of it as so many of these people are doing it with great self awareness, of their own accord rather then forced.
It all looked too self controlled. Fine if they shut down having a seizure or a fit (as the infection messes with the chemicals in the brain) then that's different because as soon as people start showing a tendency to walk back and speak gibberish means you immediately made them retarded into doing anything practical.
Or for that matter let's see people actually panicking, actually challenging the rail officers who do not know about the other train stations. They make us assume everyone is dead but how do they know if they can't get in contact in the first place? We don't see them making any efforts into contacts, not even informing the passengers. A builder saw his mates die, a woman saw her friend and everyone kill themselves yet aren't affected, so why leave the city? Or what about when our heroes escape in the countryside, on every other road, everyone is dead but not the road they are on? Plants and trees are everywhere, yes all green inflicts a nasty chemical that kills everyone but them as it comes in small waves. Would you believe it, this tutor who deals with students and stress uses MATHS to calm someone who just saw a mass suicide by hanging? Yes MATHS. For crying out he's a tutor dealing with kids, give him some social skills! In that time we have the wife of mark's character being upset and for no real reason, none at all but hides away some caller (if this was MNS trying to be clever in his cameo then it wasn't, though I walked out later on so I will never know) the reason for the secrecy? Its a very trivial one I can assure you.
One of the worst examples of continuity in the film was when our hero and his followers decide to split up and run in the direction of the wind to avoid the lethal touch. (It seemed odd that in a countryside that it would come from ONE direction and that this was the same attack that didn't kill everyone who first witnessed it.) Anyway from that attack, we never see the people who followed him and instead we get two overweight teens following them nor does anyone care. (You knew by gut instinct they were going to be killed off) then followed by some idiotic dialogue in a house and mark's character tries to make a laugh of drama in talking to a tree that was plastic that was just bad, bad enough to make me walk out.
I couldn't stand it, this was one of the worst films I've seen, even worse than ultraviolet because films like them always had some cgi here and there and some action. This was terrible because MNS ruins his own work by sloppy directing, storytelling and a really stupid sub plot regarding a cell phone that I knew from my gut feelings was him being a caller. Half of the dialogue consisted of a draft version of a wiki understanding of science and with no good references or able to break down the jargon to an audience who weren't fluent with biology.
I have a simpler proposal, why not simply make plant life give out C02, a reversal of nature's cycle. Not some chemical compound that was deliver via telepathy or whatever. I think more would have come out if the idea was a simpler and perhaps more disturbing one such as the decreasing supply of oxygen and rise of C02. Which is the flaw of the story, the idea stems from a unrealistic source, the characters in turn are poorly drawn out to react, the sense of danger, threat of the unknown, what it was we provoked was never felt because each scene was self defeating, nobody reacted as if in danger, nobody tried or even cared to understand or react to this except just follow the science guy.
To those who believe this film was good, that's your view but don't think those who don't like it are those who know nothing of cinema. When I got back I watched an older but more superior film of suspense by Hitchcock called Rebecca. If you truly have seen a 'intelligent' film then you'll know that this one falls short.