I am not usually a good judge of acting, but this is the first movie I've seen in a while in which the acting and scriptwriting (dialogue) seemed wooden to me in a bad 1950's sci-fi kind of way. Think 'Plan Nine From Outer Space'. To me, there were moments that were that bad.

The advantages of the movie, on the other hand, were the tension and suspense that were created. Shymalan has a knack for knowing where to place the camera and to make effective use of as little as possible. A lack of sound, a lack of light, a lack of props and especially a lack of special effects. He's good at getting back to the basics of what makes effective filmmaking.

The part where the house was being boarded up followed by the retreat to the basement reminded me strongly of 'Night of the Living Dead'. When the kid was suffering from the asthma attack in the basement, then it was 'Panic Room' all over again. The area in which I have a preference for films like 'Night of the Living Dead' over a film like 'Signs' is that it too knows how to create suspense but it dispenses with the 'character development' and 'backstory' schtick which, like I said earlier, should be dispensed with as far as I'm concerned because that stuff never rings true for me anyway. I think of those techniques as a cookie-cutter method of creating 'depth'.

Major studio release are generally very, very bad at portraying emotional stuff that rings true for me which is why it's best left out. European films and independent American films are far better in this regard and I will turn to them if I am in the mood for a serious drama. This 'crossover' stuff where you have movies that want both bites of the cherry end up compromising BOTH aspects in the pursuit of a movie which 'has it all'.

Does anyone remember that 'A Stir of Echoes' was ignored at the box office in favour of 'The Sixth Sense' way back when? I much, much prefer ASOE because it chose to get on efficiently with the job of scaring us and didn't get bogged down with wanting to put lumps in our throats. If I want emotion I'll go rent an Ingmar Bergman film, since he does it better than anyone else. If I want to be scared I will turn to David Koepp or George Romero or John Carpenter or Dario Argento. Don't like this middle of the road stuff.

Film was very grainy, large distraction.

***WARNING>>> SPOILERS AHEAD***

I know, I hate spoilers in a review, but this is needed...

As an agnostic, I found it a very good thought provoking excercise in philosophical thought. What I did not like about this movie is its sudden end when the aliens just up and leave in the night without us getting the benefit of the experience. yeah I know its an artistic choice, and M Night wanted to make a more spiritual movie than a sci fi movie, but he made a sci fi movie and the ending was weak and weak and weak.

The choice of soundtrack for the ending when they beat the alien to death was more like a grandiose victory march, rather than a nice bone chilling score, like the rest of the movie had. This was very dissapointing and left me going... Hmmm... thats interesting.

As a result, I have no plans to ever see this movie again. Really. The ending is so crucial, and the way it was done was just whimpy and weak, almost a cop out to avoid looking too much like a sci fi movie.

Thats not to say the element of what he used as far as spirituality goes was bad, HOWEVER...

Choice of music. So crucial. A different score would have really pumped up the emotional aspect of the end and really taken us for a great heart jolting and tear jerking ending. Instead it left me wondering why I let someone pay to bring me to this film. Yeah I got three good spine tinglers, but that was it.

I give it two out of four stars, or one thumb up and the other one somewhere else. Not in my ass, but off doing other things.

The above is exactly what I thought was wrong with the movie and why I do not ever have to see it again.

Cineworld Bradford Deluxe Screen 12/09/02 6:20pm
Flat, SRD-EX (I'm assuming they remembered to turn the EX on)

Soft Focus. The 'Road to Perdition' Trailer was the worst for focus and no text ever looked right on screen.

After the adverts/trailers I saw about a second of the BBFC cert. Every thing went black. The masking opened to scope (I’m thinking –“Hmm I thought this was a flat film”). Then I saw the remainder of the BBFC tag incorrectly stretched to Scope. At that point the projectionist must have realised that this was in fact at flat film. The lens turret went back to flat for the opening sequence of the film. The masking was eventually pulled back in to flat. But it took a couple of tries. The masking didn’t seem in good heath. It made a loud squeaking sound.

So On with the film. First point. It seemed to be one of those films that looked as if I had walked in after it hade been on for 20 minutes. It went into the story far too early for me. I hated the first appearance of the alien (rooftop). It seemed to say ‘This film is going to be about FX” too early. Which is a misconception as it’s not an FX driven film. I liked the second alien appearance. And I like the fact that Aliens were attacking the world and we weren’t seeing it happen . The ending. I wanted to aliens to end up being good. Yes I wanted the big finale alien to be curing Culkin of his asthma in an E.T kind of way. Not ending up being battered to death.

I'm getting my student lone by the end of the week, so I may make a trip to Manchester to see this in DLP next week.

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