A mediocre thriller that is messier than a babies dinner time

Rating: 6/10 (4 November 2008)

Okay, firstly I would like to say how much this film attempts to be Frank Darabonts 'The Mist', a strange event is occurring on the east coast of the U.S. (once again, America gets it first) and is causing thousands to commit suicide, and a man and his family are attempting to save themselves from the terror.
Unlike The Mist, the idea of plants releasing a deadly toxin is both likely and almost a reality. The bad news is the toxin would most likely kill you than rather make you kill yourself.
It is where the gas causes people to kill themselves that I began to lose interest in the film, despite it having a great actor (Walhberg) and director. Sadly, Walhberg does not only fail to save this film, he strangely makes it worse. His acting skill varies in this film, on some occasions Wahlberg fits the role perfectly as the scientist trying to figure the event out, however, when the time comes for Wahlberg to save the day and try to help people, the scenes get messy. As a matter of fact almost all the actors in this film did quite an unnecessarily overdone and extreme job save for John Leguizamo (who did a great and almost moving job) and Betty Buckly as the insane and lonely old spinster. But a majority of the times, acting is messy.
What I found that also varied were the deaths scenes. On one occasion we had a vary well done scene in which a zoo keeper allows himself to be mauled by his lions, on the other, in the opening scene with hundreds of people are jumping off the buildings and the girl needling herself in the head.
As for directing I would give it say an average job, nothing too special, most likely something an unknown director would make. There was one occasion where 'shaky camera' technique was used and I found that quite irritating.
All in all a totally average film which I personally would fit into the rating scale of between 6 and 7.