I saw it today and I wasn't disappointed...

...but only because I didn't have high expectations going into it.

It wasn't terrible or anything, it was just your average supernatural thriller. The acting was unremarkable all around. Any of the roles could have been given to some other actor without making a difference. There was nothing distinctive about any of the performances because there was nothing for the actors to work with anyway.

All of the characters were generic, especially the little boy, who was nothing but a walking, talking cliche of a kid from a broken household ("Will mommy come back if I clean my room real good?"). Ivana Baquero plays your typical angsty teenage girl for whom life is so damn unfair and who can simply never be happy again [dramatic huff and door slam]. Then there's Costner, as always the everyman, this time wearing the shirt of the "aw-shucks-ain't-I-average" dad whose wife suddenly runs off and dumps the kids on him. Needless to say, the line "I'm doing my best" gets tossed around a few times.

Again, I can't complain about the acting because there wasn't anything particularly challenging for any of the actors to risk *beep*ing up on. They all played their unremarkable parts, well, unremarkably. Baquero had the hardest job, since English isn't her first language. She also had to affect an American accent, which she does a little unevenly. So, there were a couple of suspenseful moments, some quick glimpses of dimly-lit monsters and a vague, mythological explanation to tie it all together. All in all, a big, loud "meh."


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LIFE: It's just a movie.