Despite Lame Twist, It Hobbles Toward a Haunting End (Spoilers)

Rating: Null/10 (2 August 2004)

I went, knowing the BIG twist and was prepared to sit down and hate the whole thing. And I was surprised (more so than I was by the "twists") that I walked out defending it to my friend. (She used words like "tedious" to describe it.)
I really wanted to hate it and have fun making mock of it. Instead, I was horrified to find that there were tears pricking my eyes in a couple of spots.
There is something gutsy about going ahead with a plot that has been completely leaked to your target audience. And there is something gutsy to be found in what this film is saying about love and fear.

It probably shouldn't have been marketed as a horror film, because it isn't. And maybe he didn't need Sigourney Weaver's star power (but you know, she has what is a small, throw-away role and she does a great job with it and I liked her in it). And no, the creatures aren't real--but what they say about our fear and what it says about the "elders" needing to generate fear in order to avoid facing their own, is quite profound. Some people are calling this a 9/11 film. If it is, Shamayalan is suggesting that if we face our fears and destroy them, we will be better off than hiding our heads in the sand.
The acting is low key (with the exception of Brody's over-the-top Noah) and dialogue appropriate to the time in which the folks believe themselves to be living. (Yes, people actually did talk like that, if the letters I have read from my great gramma's generation are any indication.) Bryce Howard is riveting to watch, though I was hardpressed to believe she was blind. And the whole throwaway bit about her and "auras" could have been dispensed with. I was sorry to see a person with mental difficulties cast as the bad guy, but I suppose a "normal-thinking" villain would have added a whole set of plot difficulties. Still, I found it hard to believe that the young man was so mentally challenged and innocent and was still able to come up with the evil plan he did.
On the over all, though, despite the twist (for a much better plot based on the same twist, read Margaret Peterson Haddix's "Running Out of Time." I'm wondering if M. Night read this book and borrowed a great deal from it), I find this film and the very end (not the twist reveal, but the last frames, focusing on the elders' decision and on Bryce Howard's quiet bravery) haunting my thoughts a day or two later.