The most skilled and most pointless film I have seen this year.

Rating: 4/10 (8 December 2008)

The day I began to watch the movie, I was in the most brilliant of moods. I had a cup o' hot chocolate my right hand, a cigarette in my left and a mind at complete peace and harmony with the world around me.
As this disaster epic neared the hour mark however, I began feeling distraught. Why? Because it's a thin story, plain and simple.
A plague of initially unknown origins (duh!) starts killing off eastern America, manipulating people in to murdering themselves in the fastest and often most brutal manner possible. An interesting premise, you say? I would tend to agree. But with a running time of 90 minutes, it is hard to find it interesting at all after a certain point, because you know it will go no further.
The characters are dry, and somewhat lifeless (excluding Whalberg and Leguizamo). Their reactions to their impending doom are somewhat too subdued at times, which is how most of us would most likely react. That's right, Shyamalan goes too far. In pursuit of realism he sacrifices suspense, a mistake he made in The Village.
Needless to say, it is visually and musically perfected, but that has never been Shyamalans Achilles heel. His weakness lies in convincing his audience to give a damn about the fate of his characters, who he more often then not, treats as puppets caught in the storm of his creativity.
We feel the power of the storm sure, but do we really want to go through it, without any characters to cheer for? Think about it.