Such a crappy movie, really!

This has the worst dialogue I’ve heard in a film for some time. It could easily stand as a case study of how NOT to make a film. Poor plotting, characterisation and pacing add up to a great big mess.

Watch out for the scene where Mark Wahlberg talks to a plastic plant:

Elliot Moore: [to house plant] Hello. My name is Elliot Moore. I’m just going to talk in a very positive manner, giving off good vibes. We’re just here to use the bathroom, and we’re just going to leave. I hope that’s okay.
[Elliot touches leaf]
Elliot Moore: Plastic. I’m talking to a plastic plant. I’m still doing it.

The plant actually out-acts him in this potboiler of a movie. Meanwhile Zooey Deschanel delivers her lines like she’s on heavy medication (what’s with the mad staring eyes?) and there are some unintentionally hilarious scenes where someone feeds himself to the lions and another person mows himself to death.

As supposed fear and panic breaks out in America because the plants are triggering human suicide genes, we get to hear clunking chunks of exposition like:

Nursery Owner: This woman’s talking to her daughter. She’s talking to her daughter in Princeton. Isn’t that where your friend went?
Elliot Moore: Come on!
[they run over to the woman]
Woman on Cell Phone: [speaking to her daughter at Princeton] It’s OK, honey, honey, it’s OK.
[to the fellow survivors]
Woman on Cell Phone: She’s so scared… You just stay in that room, you don’t open the door for nothing. Just keep watching out the window with the tree, baby, someone will come and get you soon.
Elliot Moore: Tell her, tell her not to go near the window with the tree, just tell her!
Woman on Cell Phone: Baby, don’t go near the window with the tree!
Elliot Moore: Ask her if Princeton’s been affected.
Woman on Cell Phone: Honey, someone wants to know if Princeton’s had any problems… she says everyone’s dead outside.
[they all gasp.]
Woman on Cell Phone: You just stay in your room… Honey, honey you’re talking funny, what’s wrong with you?
Elliot Moore: What do you mean? Everyone’s dead?!
Woman on Cell Phone: What? Stacy, you’re scaring me, I don’t, I don’t understand what you’re saying. What, baby? She’s just not making any sense.
Young Woman Voice on Phone: Calculus, I see… in calculus. Calculus. Calculus.
Woman on Cell Phone: Stacy… Stacy…
[loud noise, then silence on Stacy’s end of the line]
Woman on Cell Phone: Stacy Ann?
[woman starts weeping]
Woman on Cell Phone: Oh no no no no no Stacy, Stacy, oh no no no… Oh, Stacy!

This could well be a camp classic in the making. It’s supposed to be a paranoid thriller but it doesn’t thrill and the only thing to be paranoid about is that someone will catch you watching it.