Bad acting sinks this one
930069
It is a clean Christian movie. The premise of the story was good, but the acting was terrible. The acting in the animated version was more convincing.
3040192
Lowbrow and pretty stupid horror movie that lacks screenplay to not only explains what is going on but a lead actor who can act. Keanu Reeves is the gapping hole that sinks this ship and his performance will be remembered as one of the worse performances ever in a major motion picture. It also does not help the film that the director does not know how to shot a scene and the special effects are bottom of the barrel for a movie of this kind. Rachel Weisz is great but she's the only actor who seems like she gives a damn about her performance While the rest seem like they are sleepwalking.

If you love to look at your watch for two hours waiting for this movie to end, be my guess. If you want to save your dignity and your eyes, skip this film.
2711314
The first in the series was great but with each sequel the  films  became less and less  enjoyable.  This is the worst (and last for me).  Some dreadful (I mean 'really' dreadful) overacting from  the two teachers which made me cringe. If they could only see their performances. A very weak storyline which  was written on a postage stamp with room to spare. As the next in the series was filmed immediately after  this film , one can only shudder at the possibility  of having to endure another  time waster. Most of the cast are okay but no serious acting is  required from any of them. Time to bury the  hatchet on this series
1351440
Everyone that rated this movie a 5 owes me a few pennies and a small fraction of my life back.
I like a good B-Rate movie now and then, but this title offered only faintest bit of humor to keep me watching.  The acting was beyond bad, even for a B-rate title.  Just a bad, bad movie.
3400381
There's a wonderful little Scottish movie called Shallow Grave floating around (on DVD even, and it's quite fascinating); this movie is Shallow Grave gone bad.  The plot's very much the same, but the acting here -- if  you can call it acting -- is infinitely worse, and too many of the  characters are not very interesting and simply unlikable.  There's also  nothing memorable about the filmmaking itself -- it's very inconsistent, a  hodgepodge of styles that never come together in a true directorial vision.  In fact, sometimes it seems all director/screenwriter Witkins is  interested in are his actors pretty bodies.
2825514
Suspension of disbelief, anyone? the acting is terrible.
4926103
The film takes a great premise coupled with terrific actors and spoils what could have been an excellent movie with trite, silly, oversimplified dialogue and blunders that shouldn't have been made on a project with this kind of budget.
James Woods and Anne Heche are both capable of excellent acting but in this work they are both given roles and dialogue that could have been played by a first year acting student.  They are forced to become cardboard antagonists that give unbelievable lines in totally unbelievable scenes.  Later as the movie progresses they start to see the light and transform.  The people they portray in the film just aren't real enough to hate or love.
Washington is the man and his character is believable and therefore as a viewer I sympathized and believed in his cause.  He was the saving grace of this flick.  I think the dialogue was just a bit over the top with liberal platitudes about how unfair the world is and how the "rich" are out to get everyone else.  It could have been toned down a bit and still have been effective.
The scenes with Robert Duvall and Ray Liotta are more of an obstacle to the film than anything else.  Again the characters that these capable actors are stuck playing is a shame, they are much better than they are allowed to be.
The most annoying thing in the movie are the silly little political statements:
Guns are bad, bad guys get them at gun shows in five minutes.
We don't want our taxes raised so 50 million Americans don't have health coverage.
There's four hundred of us here for one job, probably already taken by some cousin.
The employers are bad, the hospitals are bad, the doctors are greedy, the hmo's let little kids die because it's cheaper, and by the way, you can get a gun at a gun show in five minutes.
As for technical errors:
The emergency rooms of large hospitals have more than four or five patients waiting to be seen, they also have a bigger staff than two or three people (none of which was a doctor).
The old "sneak through the air duct" trick belongs in Get Smart reruns and made for tv movies.
No well run hospital lets one child die (with hysterical mother screaming) right next to another terminally ill child.  It may happen in a badly run, overcrowded hospital, but this hospital was on the "right side of the tracks", so it can't be both ways.
No police force, faced with a hostage situation and an armed gunman, allows everyone on the force to show up with guns drawn and at the same time allows hundreds of spectators to stand around and cheer as if they were watching a cops charity baseball game.
No paramedics (except for really bad ones) would just hand over a bleeding patient to an armed gunman, unless they were cowards or stupid they'd stay with the guy until released by an attending physician.
I' m no expert, but I'd bet that it wouldn't be a simple procedure to perform a heart transplant in an ER, I'd imagine that it is a little more complicated than just wheeling the bed in and cutting the patient open.
I suppose that the film makers were trying to make a point with this movie and getting all the details correct and believable were not all that important.  I give the film a "C" because Denzel Washington is simply a superb actor and he is fun and entertaining to watch.  A mild recommendation for a sloppy offering.
3698343
Don't waste your time watching this one...poor acting and total waste of time!!!
4324048
I wanted to like this movie.  I really did.  The idea was a good one - unfortunately it is poorly executed.  From the slow moving script, to the 70's era back music, to the bad acting - it was all just too much to suffer through after about 30-40 minutes.  I'm sure there was redemption but I (and the rest of my family) needed to be redeemed from the agony of sitting through the entirety.  It was that bad.  Every stereotype is overdone and the guy who's supposed to be the most sympathetic character comes off as a scary stocker.  He's begging everyone to give him a chance to do an honest day's work to earn a meager wage, with an appropriate bible verse ready to roll off his tongue at all the right moments,  but he's confrontational, aggressive and nearly yelling at everyone he's asking help of - most of whom are the among the most downright heartless people imaginable toward him.  Even so, I would call the cops on him too if he persisted in my personal space after ambushing me at the back door of my business - yes, even though I'm a Christian.  It was almost laughable. Though we didn't make it to the end, I'm confident that everything was wrapped up in a neat little package and everyone lived happily ever after.  Surely there are more excellent modern day representations out there.  Much more enjoyable, with still not the greatest acting overall, was The Secret of Jonathan Sperry.  Our 10 year old son especially enjoyed that one.  I imagine I'll catch flack about this review but I'm sticking to it.  It could have spread what Jesus in action looks like today in an excellent way but it falls short.
2890317
All around bad acting and a bad script. Halfway through the movie I knew what they were going to say before they even said it and how they were going to say it.
59125
There was so much wrong with this movie its hard to say what's right. Dale Midkiff and De Young as stars promised more than was delivered (but at least they can act). The acting of the supporting cast was atrocious. Ami Dolenz' EMT was particularly badly done for a professional actor. The others were almost painful to watch esp. Dolenz' 'mom', but they weren't professionals. Sadly, actors becoming Christians apparently means never acting w/professionals again.

Wasn't expecting a xtn movie btw, just a B 2012 knockoff. The forced 'God is leading us' dialogue bought that home. The best special effects were on the box. No, that's not fair. The cross being a stone-churning key at the end was actually nicely done I thought. But what was the prophecy? That they'd be there. Well....OK.

Oddly badly done scenes- faux 'tension' at the geology office. The acting couldn't carry that through so they hammed-up the music. Amusingly inappropriate music. In fact, in a lot of places, the music was overwhelming the dialogue and the scene. Oh, the faux blizzard. At first I thought the CGI was supposed to be pollen! Again, I get 'no money', OK, then don't overreach! At least CGI some 'snow' on the ground. Had the writers or producers never seen 'snow' before? Or understand how 'snow' acts to cover leaves, branches, and ground? Oh and when they took the pregnant woman to the temple (why? to fulfill prophecy. What prophecy? Why important? No clue.), did they bother to ask her if she would prefer a doctor maybe?

Its really sad a christian-based movie feels it has to be the badly acted, poorly written ugly step-child of even badly acted, poorly written B movies. Seems you could drive home some xtn concepts of sticking together, trusting in a higher power without being ham-fisted about it.
1212320
I was on a good run watching a bunch  of movies...until this dreck! This thing was made in 1979 and given the cast should have been pretty good but instead it is a bunch of Hollywood actors getting together and acting badly, very badly. The biggest offender is Telly Savales, dear God but he was terrible. The idea of who is a follower of his and wants to sink the ship gets old so fast. Me I would have said just sink it with all aboard and you would have spared me seeing this.
2378099
None of the paid critics liked this movie very much, but the trailers were cool and I like Sam Worthington so I figured it wouldn't hurt to view it. It didn't, but it wasn't a pleasant experience either.

On the plus side the action scenes with the big monsters were put together very well. The rest was pretty cruddy. First was the casting. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes have worn out their welcomes with me. If I never see them in another movie it will be too soon. Liam phoned it in and Ralph was so awful he must have been really upset that he was even in the movie. The rest of the cast was OK but nothing stellar which might be due to the fact that few of them had all that much to do. In all fairness, when the band of adventurers was formed for the quest (the two brothers were a hoot) there was a sense of male bonding happening, and most of the actors did a decent job, but even this has been done much better before. Sam Worthington did a fine job and somehow his lines were better than everyone else'. As bad as this script and the dialogue was his lines were generally good. It were as though the producers had a personal writer for him.

The directing was mostly horrendous. The camera always seemed to be in the wrong place. These types of movies have gotten so much better over the years. You'd think the director, Louis Leterrier, would have watched a few of them to get some kind of clue on how to do this. That's another curiosity. How could he direct some of the action scenes so well and most of the others so poorly. Go figure.

The costuming was pretty horrid as well. Much of the hair styling stunk and the music was OK but forgettable.

The story was there. It's just a shame it was so mishandled. I like these kinds of movies and went into this wanting to savor all the good parts. Problem was....there were too few of them to savor.
2487369
I wish I had read more reviews before choosing to rent this movie- It's nearly 2 hours I will never get back, and I don't think it deserved my money.  The acting was fine, the first 45 minutes held my interest and I appreciated the pacing and plot.  It starts with a sort of yuppy-ish couple moving to CA and bumping into an "old friend" from the husband's high school. There's tension as the old friend seems to come on too strong in a creepy attempt at friendship, meanwhile the couple is having their own issues. Around the hour mark I started wondering how long it was going to take to get to the "AHA" moment.  I generally do well with slower paced movies, but this really started to drag. The main characters make some dumb decisions which I found irritating and made no sense except to force a means to an end. I found the marriage of the main characters unrealistic and irksome.  But what really was ridiculous was the ending or final "surprise". It was just crass and dumb.  ENDING SPOILER ALERT: The "bad guy" gives the impression that he secretly raped the wife and their newborn baby is his, not the husband's. This is retribution for the husband bullying him in high school. I thought this was ridiculous and couldn't understand it at all.  Umm, if you are that worried, wouldn't you just get a paternity test? It seemed obvious he didn't really rape the wife because that would be an easily convicted crime.  The baby was suppose to look like the creepy guy? It didn't make sense at all. The whole thing just seemed pointless at the end. It was a long draw out to a crass and dumb ending that could've been avoided, and the husband was loathsome (as he was suppose to be I guess, good acting by Justin Bateman) and the wife was a moron to marry him in the first place and a numb-nuts for trusting high-school creepy guy. UGGG! Save yourself and shampoo your hair or give yourself a pedicure instead.
4662367
Bad actor choices all around,weak acting,obvious plot line,cheesy,avoid unless its free!
215530
I only made it through 22 minutes before I turned it off.
Bad acting all around..which was sad
4103423
I want my 12 minutes back.  What was the point of this to show how good actors can act completely boring.