Just caught it last night and was pretty disappointed. There are some strong performances, especially by up-and-comer Chloe Moretz, who gives an amazingly understated performance, and during the short time she's on screen Jessica Chastain is also wonderful.
I wasn't very impressed by Sam Worthington, however, particularly his East Texas accent, which sounded like he'd just eaten a live squirrel and was called upon to speak while he was chewing the still-struggling animal.
But the good performances here have nothing to anchor themselves on, so they don't really speak to us. We just watch them float away.
The main flaw here is the story. Movies are stories and it's generally (but not always) important that the tale makes sense and holds together. This seems to have been either badly vetted or revised so often that it became indecipherable, or perhaps the editing job was butchered, but regardless of the cause you will finish this movie without much of a sense of what it was about, what you've just been watching, or why anyone would expect you to sit through it.
The message that the movie makers should take away from this is, it's important to let the audience in on the story, and it's also important that there be a story in the first place.
I wasn't very impressed by Sam Worthington, however, particularly his East Texas accent, which sounded like he'd just eaten a live squirrel and was called upon to speak while he was chewing the still-struggling animal.
But the good performances here have nothing to anchor themselves on, so they don't really speak to us. We just watch them float away.
The main flaw here is the story. Movies are stories and it's generally (but not always) important that the tale makes sense and holds together. This seems to have been either badly vetted or revised so often that it became indecipherable, or perhaps the editing job was butchered, but regardless of the cause you will finish this movie without much of a sense of what it was about, what you've just been watching, or why anyone would expect you to sit through it.
The message that the movie makers should take away from this is, it's important to let the audience in on the story, and it's also important that there be a story in the first place.