Better than Signs, but what wasn't?

Rating: 3/10 (1 August 2004)

I will do my best to avoid any spoilers, although I can't imagine how anyone who isn't as "special" as Adrian Brody's character couldn't see the ending coming after about five minutes. M. Night's dialog has never been more awkward, but at least he sped things up a bit since Signs. But like Signs, this was basically a 30 minute twilight zone episode stretched into a feature film. A solid cast was made to look like a community theater troupe with awkwardly worded dialog and one dimensional characters. The only character that were explored were surrounded with lazy disabilities to mask a lack of development. Bryce Dallas Howard did her best as the blind Ivy Walker to stay in character, despite being asked at points in the film to run in a race and, how do I say this without a spoiler... lets just say you can Imagine Blair Witch if it were one person, and they were blind and you get my drift. Did I mention she was blind? William Hurt's pauses would have make Shatner blush, but perhaps he was simply in shock at how bad the writing was and how little his, or anyone else in the movie was explored. But I guess it would have to be that way, since if you thought about any of them for more that a few seconds about it, the whole movie falls apart. I would say I expect better from M. Night, but really should we? After sixth sense he's demonstrated the ability to stretch 20 minutes of weak "what if" into 2 hours of boredom inter cut with cheap "made you jump" scenes. It's not a down movie for him, he's just found his level.