Even though the scary moments are wasted thanks to poorly drawn central characters this is the best the director has done in quite a while

Rating: 6/10 (15 June 2008)

M. Night Shyamalan's masterpiece of a misfire about the end of the world.
The plot of the film has a sudden rash of suicides on a colossal scale spiraling outward from New York's Central Park. People freeze for a moment and then when they begin to move again do themselves in. In Philadelphia a school teacher and his wife decide to flee into the country with friends, but the danger is following them.
What can I say I'm both floored and angered by this film. The premise and the scenes of (self) destruction are some of the most terrifying and unnerving scenes put on film. Shyamalan wins back a great deal of the points I held against him with some of the best horror scenes of the year. Its creepy. Even the neatness with which some people kill themselves is unpleasant. Many of the scenes are some of the best of the year.
However before you run out to see this let me add a huge BUT the central characters, aided and abetted by Mark Wahlberg and Zooey Deschanel who play them, sink this film. Actually pretty much most of the "character" and non event scenes are really weak, its as if they were cut in from another movie completely. Some have complained its the performances that sink the film, I would argue that the writing does more damage then the poor performances. Its just that this is not a film for the sort of characters shown to us to inhabit its space. This is a film that should have had no stars and should have been almost documentary like in the telling. The conventions of typical character driven cinema don't work with a story like this. If we had somehow been allowed to remain thrust into things with out an attempt at making people we can follow in a nuclear family sort of way this would have worked so much better. Do we really need to know about what may or may not have happened at Deschanel and Wahlberg's wedding? not really. This could have been a nice companion piece to last years The Mist, but its not. The reason we need a non-conventional means of telling the story is that once we know whats happening, nothing is really done with it.(If nothing else you need a non-conventional story telling because the thing-the monster- is invisible or nothing) There's this run up to the end of the world but by putting a conventional couple into it you realize that its only clever to a point and that it really doesn't go anywhere once its all set up. Its like having someone telling you the start of a great adventure story-that hooks you with a great set up only to the storyteller wander off with out taking it any farther- leaving you to go what happens next? Better than the last couple of films made by M. Night Shyamalan, but not one I would say to run out to see in theaters. Worth a look on DVD or cable.
Best way I can describe it- when it works its a nice companion piece to Shyamalan's Signs (or the parts that worked before the illogic took over) 5 ish out of 10 for the creepy parts