Reviews

From the opening scenes you get a feeling that the set direction and acting is of very low quality, it had to have been the saddest and uninspiring bar scene ever made, and his apparent shed/home/work space, which was a shed with a few oxygen tanks thrown in, I think the cash was spent on CGI, well I must say, home PCs are very capable these days. They hook up on the island, she leaves, no real character development, she comes back for a wedding, runs into the guy again, share plane to another island where the pilot has a heart attack. Luckily she has had 2 pilot lessons and is able to keep the plane in the air. The fun starts here, where they perform aeronautical miracles, suspended the laws of physics as they traverse the outside of the plane, fixing fuel lines with sticky tape and replacing lost fuel with bottles of alcohol. Land on a sand bar, which becomes the ocean again at high tide, but they are rescued by a fishing boat. Pile of excrement, yes, but funny? Yes, I wanna watch this with some friends again and have a good belly laugh. From start to finish, it's an excellent example of cheap and nasty cookie cutter cinema, with some ridiculous surprises thrown in, thank me later.

I'm not a fan of Sandra, never have been, nor Julia Roberts, I find them equally unappealing as actors. Nice to see an Aussie included in the cast, Derryn Hinches ex wife, but as per usual, the Americans accent was intolerable, and she kinda just acted neurotically for an hour. Malkovich was Malkovich, same same. No explanations, we have zero idea wtf was actually scaring them into suicide...it wasn't mysterious, it was just a complete lack of filling in the blanks, but u have to fill in some blanks to inspire some sort of believable reality into the situation. It was just pure fantasy, dragged out to a full movie, when it could have a quirky 15 min short film. I'd be less annoyed, but it was a boring, drawn out, completely unbelievable scenario. We don't know why some could still use their eyes and not suicide, we don't know what the monsters were, whether the whole world was affected, or why they were completely protected in the end under that canopy of trees and birds, how long it would last???? M Night at least tries to explain his movies, his twists make sense...with this, you're presented with a situation that is firstly unbelievable, unexplained and unfinished.

Not really a fan of Kidman, and this movie is a great example why, I think she donned her Stepford Wive's persona for this one...again. A heart surgeon has secret meetings with a teenage boy after unsuccessfully operating on his father. The boy somehow makes the Dr's whole family sick as an act of revenge for drinking on the job, Dr must choose which family member to sacrifice...which he does, randomly. During the film, these's lots of hidden messages in the imagery that you must decipher, and most likely will be attributed to the teenager being an incarnation of the devil, or a hundred other ways that it could be interpreted, of which the director will no doubt take credit for, more ambiguity the better for an artsy film, which is really means being too lazy to figure out a more plausible reason that these events could even be put on screen. The dots do not connect, the acting is definitely questionable, and the plot is just hot air, camera work is interesting, a lot of the placement is following the action, as if hovering from behind, similar to 'Birdman'. The film did have me interested in the outcome, I did want to know the reasoning behind all the sickness, and how he was able to predict it, but for a film to be worth watching, it must address it's central question, at least try and answer it, but it doesn't. So yeh it's an 'Art' film, because you have to decide yourself what it all meant, or be able to recount decades of cinematic references that the director was targeting to unravel all the hidden meaning, which may or may not lead to a logical ending. But me expecting a logical satisfying ending to a film (to which there will be no part 2) is no doubt looked upon as ignorant and docile to all the film noir aficionads's. But I felt ripped off after sitting through that, in a really classic 'film noir' way. I once watched a film where a guy took a crap on a wooden cross, and through the wonders of time lapse photography, a rose eventually grew out of the crap, that was at least slightly satisfying to endure, this one wasn't.

The film started well, but something about it was instantly concerning. It was like a re- enactment from a TV crime show, and not actually telling a story, and unfortunately the beginning was the best part. The more you get into the film, you realize why this was the case. They were just setting you up for rant about religion, and how god is all knowing and blameless. It reminded me of all the poor suckers that got conned into a secret engagement with a friend, only to find out they were selling Amway products. That's how it felt, I was duped into thinking I was getting a movie, I wasn't, it was a ridiculous religious fantasy film, but it pretended to be about a father coming to grips with the loss of his kidnapped and murdered daughter.

There are too many flashbacks, to the point where you often can't remember when the last bump on the head actually goes back to. Sam Worthington as the father was very one dimensional, very sullen and melancholy throughout the entire film, right up until the very end where he experiences his religious awakening. His accent often changed from American to Australian quite regularly too I might add. The film covers ground from when he was a boy and treated badly by his father, then onto him as a father with his own kids. He takes them on a camping trip, when disaster strikes and one of his kids fall off the canoe and gets trapped underneath. While he is frantically trying to save one son, his daughter is abducted by a felon, apparently well known to local police. There isn't a lot of detail given about the actual specifics of the crime, it is pretty much brushed over. It is merely a tool to alert us as an audience that there are intense levels of sadness, confusion and life questioning situations to come.

Time passes, there's some confusing interactions with a neighbour, his own father. One day he borrows the neighbor's 4WD to go back to the 'Shack' where his little girl's clothes were originally located after the abduction. Things go weird here. He gets to the shack, or so we believe, and somehow gets knocked unconscious. But what we see is 'Mack' transported to another world where he meets several people that represent the likeness of god. The dialogue is all about him being angry at god about the loss of his child, but in the film, god never really satisfies the viewer with a shred of a decent answer, just merely shallow propositions you might hear from any experienced politician dodging the real issues. Not to mention the fact that the bible itself makes everyone blameless for almost anything once they ask for god's forgiveness, because god loves all, even the murderers. Mack is s'posed to learn to forgive, and we see Mack learning to forgive for the next hour, literally, it's painful to watch. He is even asked to choose between his own kids, just as god chooses, asking if he should send one to hell, and one to heaven, it makes little sense because his kids had done nothing wrong, unlike his daughters killer. God then questions whether Mack has the right to judge the killer, or maybe the killers father, or that father etc etc, the question being, how far back do you go? God is blameless among all this because it is evil doing this, it isn't god, and god can't choose what is right, and whether or not to intervene. There are no answers in this film, not even in a playfully interesting way, it's a frustrating dialogue to listen to for that long.

I'm not really a religious person, I don't mind the odd Christian feel good movie, I liked 'Highway To Heaven', but this was too much and badly done, was not very entertaining, and left me questioning why an actor from a great film like 'Avatar' would consider putting his hand up for this rubbish. Maybe things are real tight in Hollywood at the moment. I could go on about how crap this film was in many other areas, but I think you get the picture. Could do a lot of damage to Worthington's career, its showcased just how bland he can be.

Movie about a married father(Reeves) being left alone for the weekend. Two girls unexpectedly turn up on his doorstep on a rainy night and they are invited inside. While waiting for their ride to turn up, the girls quickly seduce him. They then go on to become more trouble than they were worth and it seems he is unable to get rid of them.

Right from the start it looked and sounded B grade, the kids were wooden and the direction and dialogue was very badly staged, we didn't see much of the family except for the first few minutes, as they were just used to try and set the scene of a typical happy upper middle class family. It all felt very weak and transparent, even Reeves playfulness with his kids was bizarre, then he continued his moronic monster act, playfully begging for sex with his wife, who was a successful, but actually quite horrible sculptural artist.

The overall acting by Reeves was really terrible, I lost count the amount of times he pathetically wailed "Please, Please I love my family" and would start sobbing. Many times during the film he has a chance to retaliate or escape and failed miserably, it was painful to watch, not exactly suspenseful, more like ridiculous. The Matrix is one of my all time fav movies, and it was clearly a great movie whomever played the role of Neo, cause he really struggled to be convincing. the girls were attractive, and both believable as sexual hustlers praying on older men, but when they turned on him, it lost a lot of credibility, became even more ridiculous with stupid Jeopardy type games with Reeves tied up in a hair, trashing the kitchen like 3 year olds. The whole point of the movie was a payback for something that had never really existed in the first place, he was a pedo, then he wasn't a pedo?. The movie plot lines really had basis for their actions except to prove that men won't say 'no' to rape, from 2 attractive, young, sex crazed women...doubt that anyone was surprised with that outcome. 1 star for the Spanish pop song, 1 star for the funny phone call to the wife, 1 for Reeves role in 'Parenthood' that still lingers with me, great movie.

This review may not contain a spoiler, but I ticked it anyway. This is a cheaply made, badly acted and scripted, possible student film.

It is completely unoriginal, except for the fact that the main character purposely tries to become possessed as opposed to unknowingly. This may be because of his wife accidentally dying, but it's never made clear why, seem to be just an experiment he's performing on himself, out of depression maybe, we don't know, he seems fairly chipper in the beginning. Since when do things happen for a reason in C grade films? He has a young daughter still living with him, but he continues on his course of trying to become even more and more possessed, till he gets out of control, trashes the house, and his sister takes his kid off him. The talking was too quiet, then sound effects were way too loud and abrasive, trying to maintain their cheap 'jump' scares that always fell flat. People connected with the film have once again inflated the scoring, it's definitely a one star film, avoid this poor excuse of a movie.

I would like to offer a way it could have been better, but the story and plot were weak, the acting was weak, writing was dull, the look of the film was not consistent yet the settings were pretty much all in the house. The grave scene with the priest, that kinda went in another direction there where he was getting teeth sewn into his belly to summon the spirit of a dead corpse. Then it was back to the house for the rest of the film till its inevitable end. Please stop making this type of complete crap, conning the general public to rent or buy it, nobody in the real world would rate this stinking movie, nobody.

Just writing a review to reinforce a clear mental note to NEVER see another Adam Sandler or Drew Barrymore movie ever. The main problem with this one was the actors, the plot, and the writing. It was so bad it turned my stomach, especially all the singing by the Africans to outline the storyline...a technique clearly pinched from 'Something About Mary', but it was done soooo so poxy. I hated this movie, so did my wife, and my dog. To say it was a cookie cutter movie and predictable as hell is an understatement. Boy meets girl, kids don't like new dad, old dad is an ignorant dick who sleeps around, bad first date, they meet accidentally in shop, accidentally end up on an African vacation (like a Brady Bunch Hawaii 'special') Africans sing all the time and it's like Disneyland, oldest daughter is tom boy, gets make over by new mom, so then gets the guy she likes, new dad teaches kid to hit baseballs, he hits a home run at end of film (they love their baseballs metaphors in American films)Drew has a ridiculous job as a wardrobe arranger with a ridiculous friend who really unlikable because she hates kids (in quite a nasty way actually)I can't even be bothered to finish this review...I don't recommend seeing this, watch '50 First Dates' again instead.

Cage plays a building developer with a dark past, links to the Russian Mafia. His daughter is abducted, and he assembles a crack team of former work colleagues to hunt down and kill those responsible.

I felt like I was watching another version of 'Taken' starring Liam Neeson, but I can assure you, I wasn't. It was badly acted, badly cast. badly written, and badly edited. The whole premise to the film that we see at the start is completely undone at the end, to the point that the whole film becomes one huge 'celebrated' plot hole, or should I say 'sink hole'. It is a directing tool of mis-direction that should be avoided, it stinks, did not add an interesting twist to the storyline, just made the whole film completely pointless. Cage's acting dynamics went from the usual 'head down ramblings' to the ever annoying 'over the top yelling', usual fare from him. The wife role was almost pointless,I think Sidney Poitier's cop role was ridiculous, even at times saying..."If you don't stop killing all these people I may actually have to do something.." You don't really get much of a back story from any of the characters, you do not feel any empathy for their plight, or care what happens to any of them. There's a lot of shooting, car chases, and the movie goes from whispering dialogue to ear splitting gun shots and screeching cars, which I find annoying, the higher end of the dynamic range of the soundtrack was ridiculous compared to the softly spoken dialogue. Needs to be addressed, sure, gun shots are gonna be louder than the spoken word, but c'mon, one minute I couldn't hear the dialogue, nek minnit, I was reaching for the volume control. 3 out of 10

We are directed thru this shambles from the perspective of a doctor who is in a hurry to get to his place of work. He has a son and meets an attractive female on a train. Other stereotypical characters are introduced to raise our suspicions of possibly some sort of terrorist act further in the proceedings. The train fails to stop,then there appears to be staff missing from the train, and pathetic attempts are made to find out who is in the drivers seat. They manage to eventually disconnect one of the carriages, before which they casually throw back a few beverages and chat amongst themselves about irrelevant life lessons, even though they are expecting to die in approx 5 minutes. The idiot Dr then finds himself on the wrong side of the train carriages as the last carriage separates, and then he miraculously throws himself out the back of a speeding train as it crashes into the last station. You've seen this movies a hundred times, the acting is terrible, the plot is predictable, and we are left none the wiser as to who was was driving, or why? It dragged, it had numerous plot and acting flaws, there was no interesting dialogue, or inspired character portrayals. It floors me to think how these get made, who is funding this rubbish and why? I gave it 2 stars because there was an ambiance to the film, I felt there was potential at the beginning, but I got nothing from the film except a lack of sleep, from staying up to watch it.