Let's be clear - this is a movie without a third act. And what film there is, blatantly takes from much better movies - and sometimes not so much better.
The acting is fine across the board, but there are simply too many things that we as an audience are expected to accept without being shown or told. Usually in a paranormal mystery thriller like this, that is okay, but these are fundamental flaws.
For example, the filmmakers spend a great deal of time setting up the thread of a house for sale. The mother, a real estate agent, is trying to sell it. It'd be almost metaphorical in the hands of a better director/screenwriter. But after an unusual incident, she is told to take time off...aaaand and it just ends there. The father's search for a job culminates in the implication of a successful interview, but that peters out to nowhere too. These may sound like minor squabbles, but they lead to a series of major problems once we arrive at - what is expected to be called - the ending.
JK Simmons, a fine actor, sleepwalks his way to another mortgage check, giving the appropriate amount of effort such a walk-on role deserves. While what he exposites terrifies our two protagonists, for a passionate expert in his field who has tracked this kind of activity for years, he acts like he'd rather go take a nap. The scene feels so awkward because his character has been set up as someone who cares about the abduction phenomenon, yet he responds to a developing event and these people's pleas about their children's safety like a bigfoot expert shrugging off someone producing his home address.
The entire second act is beat for beat taken from Signs, right down to the awkward family dinner and the walky-talkies. It culminates so weakly and is so clumsily edited that I had no idea where I was or what was happening. Things suddenly start getting symbolic and artsy when there had been nothing leading up to it at that point in the story. The tone shift is so abrupt and brief (some may even call it a 'big-lipped alligator moment')that it takes you completely out of the movie, even given how poorly it manages to hold your attention to begin with. And to top it all off, it proceeds to end right at the point when the movie should have been getting interesting (think Jennifer's Body). And where it ends...whoa, boy...
The audience and I could not have been more offended if the ending had simply smash cut to a screen-wide still of the director flipping us off. After *SPOILER* their son is abducted, we cut to three months later, where each parent has managed to overcome becoming suspects in their son's disappearance to have jobs now, I guess, since they could afford to move to a new town and pay for the legal bills. This is all on top of the fact that it then ends 90 seconds later. Whatever revelations that are made are too little too late (Oh, he was sick a lot. That's right. Remember that, audience? He was sick).
It's become all too common for people on here to say "I almost demanded my money back!", but this time it was true. I didn't expect Close Encounters, but I expected a little more effort than this. Instead, it was just another forgettable, underwhelming write-off the studios put out this time of year. As Zappa once said, "Hold onto that dollar a little while longer, for spending it here, why it couldn't be wronger".
The acting is fine across the board, but there are simply too many things that we as an audience are expected to accept without being shown or told. Usually in a paranormal mystery thriller like this, that is okay, but these are fundamental flaws.
For example, the filmmakers spend a great deal of time setting up the thread of a house for sale. The mother, a real estate agent, is trying to sell it. It'd be almost metaphorical in the hands of a better director/screenwriter. But after an unusual incident, she is told to take time off...aaaand and it just ends there. The father's search for a job culminates in the implication of a successful interview, but that peters out to nowhere too. These may sound like minor squabbles, but they lead to a series of major problems once we arrive at - what is expected to be called - the ending.
JK Simmons, a fine actor, sleepwalks his way to another mortgage check, giving the appropriate amount of effort such a walk-on role deserves. While what he exposites terrifies our two protagonists, for a passionate expert in his field who has tracked this kind of activity for years, he acts like he'd rather go take a nap. The scene feels so awkward because his character has been set up as someone who cares about the abduction phenomenon, yet he responds to a developing event and these people's pleas about their children's safety like a bigfoot expert shrugging off someone producing his home address.
The entire second act is beat for beat taken from Signs, right down to the awkward family dinner and the walky-talkies. It culminates so weakly and is so clumsily edited that I had no idea where I was or what was happening. Things suddenly start getting symbolic and artsy when there had been nothing leading up to it at that point in the story. The tone shift is so abrupt and brief (some may even call it a 'big-lipped alligator moment')that it takes you completely out of the movie, even given how poorly it manages to hold your attention to begin with. And to top it all off, it proceeds to end right at the point when the movie should have been getting interesting (think Jennifer's Body). And where it ends...whoa, boy...
The audience and I could not have been more offended if the ending had simply smash cut to a screen-wide still of the director flipping us off. After *SPOILER* their son is abducted, we cut to three months later, where each parent has managed to overcome becoming suspects in their son's disappearance to have jobs now, I guess, since they could afford to move to a new town and pay for the legal bills. This is all on top of the fact that it then ends 90 seconds later. Whatever revelations that are made are too little too late (Oh, he was sick a lot. That's right. Remember that, audience? He was sick).
It's become all too common for people on here to say "I almost demanded my money back!", but this time it was true. I didn't expect Close Encounters, but I expected a little more effort than this. Instead, it was just another forgettable, underwhelming write-off the studios put out this time of year. As Zappa once said, "Hold onto that dollar a little while longer, for spending it here, why it couldn't be wronger".