Failed to hold up

Rating: 6/10 (29 June 2005)

Nice and entertaining first hour. It built up nicely and created an atmosphere of intrigue and suspense. However, there were a couple of extremely annoying characters (son and Tim Robbins) doing insanely stupid things, and one scene (in Tim Robbins basement) near the end that went on far too long. A bit too much of Dakota Fanning screaming, but she did a nice job of piercing my eardrum. Virtual non-existent explanation of the entire ending (which really made the movie a huge downer). It was something about microscopic cells and God, but it was done far too quickly in a voice over narrative by Morgan Freeman and just completely left me and everyone else in the theater with a look of "what did they just say??" and "that's it??". Nice effects, but the rest of it just didn't hold up, especially for the final 45 minutes or so, which in the end really left me disappointed.