Two huge problems with this movie:
1) It is advertised as having a "Sixth Sense" type of surprise twist that you "must see" before someone "spoils it" for you and that you will be taken on an "emotional roller-coaster ride" for the last 40 minutes. None of that is true, there is not a big bomb dropped at the end. What happens is slowly built up to. To use the roller-coaster analogy, two thirds of the movie is a slow ascent to the top, then the last third is a straight, unsatisfying, plateau. I was not totally surprised or shocked at the last part of the movie (they basically hint at it long before) and it was a HUGE let down if you go by the movie's advertising campaign.
2) This is not a documentary; at least a large part of it is not. The story has a lot of holes and you can catch the main guy acting, but there are also several technical give aways. This is supposedly shot with several cameras at the same time, all of varying sizes that produce various degrees of picture quality. One of them is of extremely high quality, very professional looking, and another looks like an ordinary small photo camera that happens to shoot video. At one point, we are supposed to believe we are looking from the angle of the cheap camera, yet the image is high quality!!! In a couple of places they used sound effects to help the story, and if they embellished the sound, you have to ask, what else did they embellish? I have used one of the cameras they have and when you are holding it and you move to place yourself in a better position, there's a certain look to that movement. The way their camera moved looked completely fabricated and unnatural, just like "Cloverfield", trying to achieve the "documentary" feel. In several spots, the lighting was just too good for something that was supposedly shot as it happened. The framing constantly looks heavily planned. There are some out of focus shots that are meant to suggest a "raw footage" feel, but were obviously on purpose.
I would probably had liked this movie much better if it had been released as a movie shot in documentary style and they didn't have this whole charade about it being real and about how awesome the ending is supposed to be. It has its moments, but there's no need to insult people's intelligence.
1) It is advertised as having a "Sixth Sense" type of surprise twist that you "must see" before someone "spoils it" for you and that you will be taken on an "emotional roller-coaster ride" for the last 40 minutes. None of that is true, there is not a big bomb dropped at the end. What happens is slowly built up to. To use the roller-coaster analogy, two thirds of the movie is a slow ascent to the top, then the last third is a straight, unsatisfying, plateau. I was not totally surprised or shocked at the last part of the movie (they basically hint at it long before) and it was a HUGE let down if you go by the movie's advertising campaign.
2) This is not a documentary; at least a large part of it is not. The story has a lot of holes and you can catch the main guy acting, but there are also several technical give aways. This is supposedly shot with several cameras at the same time, all of varying sizes that produce various degrees of picture quality. One of them is of extremely high quality, very professional looking, and another looks like an ordinary small photo camera that happens to shoot video. At one point, we are supposed to believe we are looking from the angle of the cheap camera, yet the image is high quality!!! In a couple of places they used sound effects to help the story, and if they embellished the sound, you have to ask, what else did they embellish? I have used one of the cameras they have and when you are holding it and you move to place yourself in a better position, there's a certain look to that movement. The way their camera moved looked completely fabricated and unnatural, just like "Cloverfield", trying to achieve the "documentary" feel. In several spots, the lighting was just too good for something that was supposedly shot as it happened. The framing constantly looks heavily planned. There are some out of focus shots that are meant to suggest a "raw footage" feel, but were obviously on purpose.
I would probably had liked this movie much better if it had been released as a movie shot in documentary style and they didn't have this whole charade about it being real and about how awesome the ending is supposed to be. It has its moments, but there's no need to insult people's intelligence.