| Overall Grade: |
C |
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| Story: |
B+ |
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| Acting: |
D+ |
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| Direction: |
D+ |
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| Visuals: |
B+ |
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A Scrambled Message (SPOILERS!!!)
by Christopher J (movies profile)
Dec 17, 2007
202
of
252 people found this review helpful
Why Kristen Stewart? Why do you hate me?
After "Panic Room" i was mildly annoyed by Ms. Stewart. Her role in "Zathura" made absolutely no sense. Now, with "The Messengers", I find new reasons to despise this suprisingly attractive actress.
It should be no surprise, based on the intro, that I found this latest offering from Sam Raimi to be less than outstanding. The story is a garbled mess, extraneous characters are given dialogue that a kindergartener wouldn't say, and why the hell are there so many crows? The only redeeming quality possesed by this Shamylan esque rip-off is that when the movie tries to be scary, it really is. There are some legitimate, albeit mild, frights throughout. However, they are so far removed from each other that it hardly distracts from the tattered story line and fourth grade dialogue. To give you an idea, the story breaks down like this:
Jess (K. Stewart) and her family have just moved from Chicago to small town life on a sunflower farm in the country. That's right, I said Sunflower farm. After moving in, Jess' little brother begins acting strangely; aside from the fact that he doesn't talk, he begins walking around like Stevie Wonder's twin, following the ghostly inhabitants that only he can see. As the intensity of the sightings grow, Jess begins to see and experience things herself, leading to a couple of fairly decent "jump" moments. As always, her parents are in denial, and creepy things now taunt her with the fact that nobody believes her. Eventually, Jess and her family discover the true meaning of the messengers, and realize that they are in a different, and more realistic type of danger.
The movie wasn't horrible, it was just poorly done. Initially, we are presented with an unkown problem, involving Jess, that led to the family's departure from Chicago. Instead of dealing with this and moving on, the writers decide to stretch the whole thing out the entire length of the movie, revealing what happened seconds before the supposed climax. We were supposed to care about what happened in Chicago, but by the time they tell us, I really didn't want to be bothered. Then there are the sunflowers which, along with the damn crows, seem to make no sense, but apparently hold some deep meaning that is never properly conveyed. As a result, the whole concept comes off as cheap and unnecessary. The entire movie performs in this manner: Boring exposition, crow, weird camera angle, creepy moment, creepy moment, boring exposition, and some more crows...repeat for two hours.
The only actor worth his salt was the little kid...and he never says a word. Dylan McDermott comes off cheesy throughout, and Penelope Miller's character is a cookie cutter version of every horror mom since the dawn of time. As for Ms. Stewart, this type of movie, where you are going for more of sense of unease than outright fright, requires a little subtlety. You can't go from detatched to terrified in a millisecond, it just doesn't happen. To top it off, the writers completely waste the talent of William B. Davis on a two line part that served absolutely no purpose.
The special effects are okay. The movie would be scary for younger kids, but anyone over ten should be fine. There is no gore, which is welcome, but the story may have benefited from a little mutilation. Overall, it was just okay. Hopefully, when the casting people are trying to decide on a heroine for their next movie, Kristen Stewart won't even make the list.
2 stars out of 4 |
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