Taken on its OWN merit, is it watchable?

Fairly entertaining. but forgettable.

I liked it. The CGI was too much at times, but it was still pretty entertaining.

Poorly Lived and Poorly Died, Poorly Buried and No One Cried

On it's own take it as a fast paced monster movie.

While definitely not on par with the original Carpenter film, this is decent enough as modern horror flicks go.

It has two major problems:

1) some idiot(s) at the studio made them replace all the awesome practical effects they did with cheap-looking CGI. Seriously. Look on YouTube to see the original effects that were done. The CGI was clearly rushed, because it looks awful and really destroys a lot of the fear factor.

2) every other person thinks its a remake, because they gave it the same title and that was the rumours before it was released. It's not. It's a prequel to the original movie that they stupidly didn't give its own title, so people often still assume it's a remake (reboots being so common sadly these days).

Otherwise, it's fun seeing someone's take on what happened before the events of the first movie. There are some jarring gaps in continuity between the movies, and more than one bump in logic, but the characters are likeable enough, the suspense okay and the scares at least passable.

As long as you don't expect the level of the original (effects, crew, suspense) it's not bad.

I would have liked it a if it wasn't for them putting CGI over the practical effects, the lack of character depth and development, and the crappy soundtrack music. This movie looks like it was directed by a bunch of 13 year old Austrian biker girls with dreadlocks. I still watch it occassionly but I like the Carpenter movie a lot better.

Go, Miami Redhawks!!!

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Only for Mary Elizabeth Winstead since she's very pretty but the movie, even on its own merit, is quite mediocre.

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