A pleasant surprise

Rating: 7/10 (12 June 2008)

I must say that I am not a huge fan of M. Night, and have thought his movies to range from poor to mediocre. As I sat down to watch this film I told my friend: "I am 100% sure this film is going to be horrible". I was wrong. I thought it was an engrossing film about normal people stuck in unusual circumstances. The characters had a certain amount of the depth (only a certain amount), and were more interesting than your usual run of the mill Hollywood blockbuster characters. This isn't really a film with cheap thrills. You're not going to get cheap scares, which is what I think most people are going to be expecting. What is going to let this film down is the advertising. I think you average below average intelligence, movie goer is gonna expect something else. An action movie, or something, but this is just a story about people. I thought the script was a pretty good piece of hand work. Relatively tight and interesting. I found it to have an element of being able to put yourself in these people's shoes. Something I had more difficulty doing in, say, Cloverfield. These characters have to make decisions about their loved ones. They have to face up to risking their own lives for those they care about the most. Cloverfield is a pretty similar movie to this on, in certain aspects. I didn't really relate to its characters, and found it abysmal. I related to these people, and that kept my interest going, because this is very much a character driven film. Perhaps if I'd gone in with expectations of something grand, I'd have been disappointed. There is nothing grand about the scale of this film. I think it is M. Night's best so far, but others might disagree, as I heard some grumbles leaving the theatre. This film is far from perfect. Whalberg's performance is pretty dire. But, I think he's usually pretty dire, if not given a strong actor's director. Also, the script is weak in some areas despite being rather tight. I think this film might flop, just because of its marketing and people's pre-conceived notions. Although it doesn't deserve to.