The Critics are Too Kind

Rating: 2/10 (3 February 2005)

This film fails on many levels.
The acting often descends to woodenness.
The "special effects"/costumes are ludicrous. One thinks of early episodes of Dr. Who. Even a child would not be fooled into believing that the "creatures" were not humans in costume.
In order to accept some of the plot elements, one would have to more than suspend disbelief. One would have to discard all logic. Consider Ivy's on-again/off-again blindness, discussed in detail elsewhere.
The film could have developed the moral dilemma arising when Joaquin Phoenix/Lucius is stabbed. The villagers had sworn an oath not to return to the outside world but not to return would mean that Lucius would surely die. While one does not expect treatment of this dilemma to rise to the level of Hamlet's internal conflict, this could easily have been a key part of the plot. It went nowhere.
As to the twists, they were so obvious that the story held few surprises.
A total waste of time.
dr c