I was so, so ready to love this movie, especially given that I loved both Signs and The Village when no one did. I was disappointed with it, but not as disappointed as I would have been had I not known that everyone else hated it. :-)
It's a nice concept, executed nicely. Its main problem on my end was the characters. They were all incredibly flat. The Paul Giamatti character (and the lady in the water herself) became the only one who I could understand. Everyone else seemed like they were randomly selected and thrown in there, even amusing characters like the movie critic. [Slight Spoiler Warning Ahead] So when person after person was selected, and then re-selected to help this girl get back to her world, I kept thinking, "Uh, yeah, so what?" [/Spoiler] I'm thinking it would have made me like it significantly more had it been created as a mini-series (although I seriously doubt the plot could be stretched that far). That way when all the characters came together at the end, it would be an "Oh, now that's cool" moment instead of "Wait, who's that person again? I don't get it." Stretching it out also would have offered opportunities to explore motivations - like why everyone just goes along with the plan. Here it seems random and unbelievable, while there could have been some good exploration of that.
I certainly didn't think this was the dismal failure the critics seemed to think it was. It still has some lovely moments that work, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. But it was far too jumbled to warrant a high rating. 3.5 stars.
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