Wading through zombie-style post-apocalyptic movies to get here, this movie starts out fairly fresh and draws you in by the premise, initial pacing, and John Malkovich.

But to me it feels like a bit too simplistic premise the screenplay writers took and then just brainstormed away on and put together without any kind of pruning of ideas or critical thinking.

This movie had a good cast and high production values, everybody involved (except the screenwriters..) clearly knew what they were doing. Why couldn't they have put a bit more (or a lot more...) thought into the plot, and maybe this could have become a movie you didn't want your 2 hours back after watching..

You quickly become accustomed to the "horror" in the movie and drawing it out for 2 hours is far too long without a more involving plot. Also Sandra Bullock hits a one-note performance, though I'm pretty sure this is not her fault.

Others have complained about underdeveloped characters - while I agree with this, you don't really expect more from a movie in this genre and it's not the main problem with the movie by far.

If you didn't like this movie or want to avoid wasting your time, I recommend Tremors (1990) instead for a lesson in how to develop characters that do not act like complete idiots, be creepy and lighthearted at the same time, have a (relatively) self-contained plot and of course features Kevin Bacon.