JayinthePNW

So.... I find the most unbelievable part of this movie is that anyone in Russia, besides their oligarchs, could afford a robotic arm. It's a weird gimmick. But along with the cheap green screen effects and the stereotypical Russian family dynamic that makes for a "stable family"...pass. This film is not really anything new from most disaster movies and no one in danger is sympathetic. Better to watch any other Roland Emmerich film. Or maybe not.

Privileged and vapid twenty somethings talk a lot and whine about their poor privileged lives in Hawaii. Some people die, with not enough character development to even care about anyone at any point. Paper-thin characters with a paper-thin plot. Not even a fun waste of time. This truly is the bottom of the barrel for "remakes."

Bryan Bertino started his career with a small film called the Strangers. With a modest budget, the film was a huge financial success for Universal. Since then he has pulled away from the director's chair, choosing to write and produce content instead of directing. In the wake of the Strangers release, many wondered why with such a huge success would Bertino stop directing. Well, I think this film shows pretty clearly why that is the case. Without a major studio to rein him in, Bertino has little to no command of his own material, relying on several "made you look" death scenes to convey the cruelty of his narrative structure. This is not new territory to horror, and Bertino wastes Marin Ireland in a lead role (which she elevates above and beyond the material on the page), meandering around, creating atmosphere over plot, resulting in a tired, boring, run of the mill art film with nothing surprising up its sleeve, and nothing to say about the family dynamics of the characters that it purports to know so well about. Do yourself a favor and re watch something else.