Written by John Shea
Along the same lines I'd like to know what sort of drugs Hilary Swank is taking. Or did that second Oscar convince her that she could do anything at all and come out smelling like a rose? Clearly a big fat paycheck was involved. I understand she didn't get rich starring in Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby but surely there was some middle ground between getting rich and having some integrity. I won't pick on her too much here. She didn't embarass herself by acting down to the level of script, and that's something I wouldn't exactly want to be proud of but it could be considered some sort of moral victory I suppose.
The real villains here are screenwriters Chad and Carey Hayes. According to their resume they previously wrote House of Wax, a film whose entire box office take was attributed to the opportunity to see Paris Hilton's gory death. Here they've decided to slap some Old Testament stuff into a horror film, apparently believing that Christians are so starved for entertainment that they'll stampede to any movie that takes them vaguely seriously. That's pretty god damn cynical. The script is stunningly predictable. Swank's character, scientist and miracle buster Katherine Winter is a hardcore atheist has a character arc so easily forseeable that anyone who doesn't guess she'll eventually come around to believing in god has probably been brain dead for at least a week. And apparently that did occur to the writers because they tossed in a few twists at the end to try and seem a little edgy but succeeded only in torpedoing what little coherence the film was desperately hanging on at that point.
Supposedly this is either a thriller or horror. I was neither thrilled or scared in the slightest. I did struggle to stay awake at points, despite having chugged down a can of Red Bull prior to entering the theater. While not scary, I'll give them credit for the locust scene, which looked pretty cool if nothing else.
If you've gotten this far into the review and have some remnant of interest in the story, I'll try and rehash it. Katherine used to be an ordained minister but lost her faith after her family was slaughtered in Sudan where she was doing some missionary work. Apparently there are folks out there who react even worse to people trying to shove their religion down a person's throat than I do. So she comes home and starts actively laying the smack down on supposed miracles. This earns her a trip to Haven, Louisiana where the locals are a little spooked by their river turning blood red. With her sidekick Ben (Idris Elba), the requisite token black guy in a horror film (want to take bets on whether he lives or not?), Katherine sets about doing the testing required to show the stereotypical Bible thumping southern rednecks that the Apocalypse is not just around the corner. This involves dead frogs, mad cows, locusts, lice, boils, fire from the sky, bad accents and Oprah Winfrey. No. Just kidding. They already had a black person in the movie. There is a pitchfork waving mob and a creepy little kid. There is the requisite plantation style mansion and lame attempts to make the audience jump.
You know what the worst part about this movie is? It is sucking away my will to bitch. Seriously. I already coughed up 90 minutes of my time to watch this turkey and now I'm just not willing to spend a similar amount of time trashing it. Life's too short to be bothered.
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Thursday, 26 April 2007 18:47
A movie like this makes you really wonder about the machinery behind the glitz of Hollywood. Someone actually had to read this script and say to themselves, "Yes, I want to spend a lot of money to make this!" And that makes me ask what sort of drugs they were taking and if I can get some.
That's not true. I don't want to take any drug that will dull my brain enough to believe this steaming pile of shit is anything other than a steaming pile of shit.Along the same lines I'd like to know what sort of drugs Hilary Swank is taking. Or did that second Oscar convince her that she could do anything at all and come out smelling like a rose? Clearly a big fat paycheck was involved. I understand she didn't get rich starring in Boys Don't Cry and Million Dollar Baby but surely there was some middle ground between getting rich and having some integrity. I won't pick on her too much here. She didn't embarass herself by acting down to the level of script, and that's something I wouldn't exactly want to be proud of but it could be considered some sort of moral victory I suppose.
The real villains here are screenwriters Chad and Carey Hayes. According to their resume they previously wrote House of Wax, a film whose entire box office take was attributed to the opportunity to see Paris Hilton's gory death. Here they've decided to slap some Old Testament stuff into a horror film, apparently believing that Christians are so starved for entertainment that they'll stampede to any movie that takes them vaguely seriously. That's pretty god damn cynical. The script is stunningly predictable. Swank's character, scientist and miracle buster Katherine Winter is a hardcore atheist has a character arc so easily forseeable that anyone who doesn't guess she'll eventually come around to believing in god has probably been brain dead for at least a week. And apparently that did occur to the writers because they tossed in a few twists at the end to try and seem a little edgy but succeeded only in torpedoing what little coherence the film was desperately hanging on at that point.
Supposedly this is either a thriller or horror. I was neither thrilled or scared in the slightest. I did struggle to stay awake at points, despite having chugged down a can of Red Bull prior to entering the theater. While not scary, I'll give them credit for the locust scene, which looked pretty cool if nothing else.
If you've gotten this far into the review and have some remnant of interest in the story, I'll try and rehash it. Katherine used to be an ordained minister but lost her faith after her family was slaughtered in Sudan where she was doing some missionary work. Apparently there are folks out there who react even worse to people trying to shove their religion down a person's throat than I do. So she comes home and starts actively laying the smack down on supposed miracles. This earns her a trip to Haven, Louisiana where the locals are a little spooked by their river turning blood red. With her sidekick Ben (Idris Elba), the requisite token black guy in a horror film (want to take bets on whether he lives or not?), Katherine sets about doing the testing required to show the stereotypical Bible thumping southern rednecks that the Apocalypse is not just around the corner. This involves dead frogs, mad cows, locusts, lice, boils, fire from the sky, bad accents and Oprah Winfrey. No. Just kidding. They already had a black person in the movie. There is a pitchfork waving mob and a creepy little kid. There is the requisite plantation style mansion and lame attempts to make the audience jump.
You know what the worst part about this movie is? It is sucking away my will to bitch. Seriously. I already coughed up 90 minutes of my time to watch this turkey and now I'm just not willing to spend a similar amount of time trashing it. Life's too short to be bothered.
- This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
Last Updated on Thursday, 26 April 2007 18:58
