I had given up hope of ever seeing a Kevin Smith movie that didn't annoy me. Thus, I didn't see this until quite recently, on the suggestion of reliable movie nerds. And I have to say, I was very pleasantly surprised.
I have seen movies with a similar premise; a person is trapped with a lunatic (Creep, and Misery, for example), or persons in the same situation (The Human Centipede, and Split), but unlike those movies, this one does things right. It keeps the perfect balance between humor, drama, and horror. And unlike most movies in this genre, the focus is not on the gore and sadism (like the Human Centipede). Instead we have a villain that I could not help but feel for, in-between the utter insanity of Michael Parks' character.
As for the actors, I have never been a fan of Justin Long (which was another reason why I didn't want to see this movie), but he did a very good job! And Michael Parks is absolutely brilliant. Without his performance the movie would not have been half as good. Haley Joel Osment and Genesis Rodriguez are giving very convincing performances. In fact, the only actor that I didn't like was Johnny Depp, who seemed to under the impression that this was one of Smith's adolescent comedies (and Smith clearly didn't correct him). In fact, had Johnny Depp not brought the movie down with his ridiculous overacting, I may have pushed the rating up a star. It was almost embarrassing to see him try to perform whatever he was doing, and whatever it was it was far from convincing, and honestly, I think the character does very little for the story. He only tells the audience what we had already figured out, or didn't need to know.
So give it a chance. It certainly is not as bad as so many here have claimed.
I have seen movies with a similar premise; a person is trapped with a lunatic (Creep, and Misery, for example), or persons in the same situation (The Human Centipede, and Split), but unlike those movies, this one does things right. It keeps the perfect balance between humor, drama, and horror. And unlike most movies in this genre, the focus is not on the gore and sadism (like the Human Centipede). Instead we have a villain that I could not help but feel for, in-between the utter insanity of Michael Parks' character.
As for the actors, I have never been a fan of Justin Long (which was another reason why I didn't want to see this movie), but he did a very good job! And Michael Parks is absolutely brilliant. Without his performance the movie would not have been half as good. Haley Joel Osment and Genesis Rodriguez are giving very convincing performances. In fact, the only actor that I didn't like was Johnny Depp, who seemed to under the impression that this was one of Smith's adolescent comedies (and Smith clearly didn't correct him). In fact, had Johnny Depp not brought the movie down with his ridiculous overacting, I may have pushed the rating up a star. It was almost embarrassing to see him try to perform whatever he was doing, and whatever it was it was far from convincing, and honestly, I think the character does very little for the story. He only tells the audience what we had already figured out, or didn't need to know.
So give it a chance. It certainly is not as bad as so many here have claimed.