A good movie, but overrated.

Rating: 5/10 (20 May 2002)

*Spoilers* I can start out by saying that I am somewhat biased to this movie because I do not like child actors. Their characters are just never believable in my opinion. That aside, this movie was pretty well done and had an alright story to tell, but what was the overall point to it? What was the lasting emotion or thought on the movie? The whole movie seems to center around Bruce Willis trying to get inside the kid and get him to accept him. Seriously, this takes up almost three fourths of the movie. Then, at the end, it seems like the director realized that he did not have very much time left in the movie and kind of threw in that last little bit about the mother poisoning the child and rushed the big climax where Bruce Willis finds out he is dead. It seems that the entire movie had just been put together for that one twist of an ending. The ending is very good, but an ending cannot make up for the rest of the movie.
The movie does have some genuinely scary and creepy parts but for the most part seems indecisive as to whether its a drama or a horror movie.

There are some parts where I was left questioning, "huh?" after watching it a second time. I don't remember too well but did they not skip three months between the time Willis was shot and when the actual movie begin? What was Bruce's character doing all this time and where did he think the time had gone if he truly did not know he was dead. I did not know about red being used as symbolism until they told me about it after the movie and that is probably why they put that segment at the end. No one picked up on it because it had almost nothing to do with the plot of the movie. It's almost like the director threw that in there so he could say, "Hey, everyone, I'm smart, I can use subtle symbolism." The symbolism itself is so broad that its largely ineffective for when something red appears it just has "something to do with dead person," even if a dead person had just touched it or something.
There are certain saving graces about this movie. Bruce Willis turned in a good performance and it did makeyou think in some parts, but ultimately a movie that will quickly be forgotten, maybe faster if everyone would stop making parodies of it =). Overall, not one of my favorite horror/dramas. 5/10