Another one of these movies... Damn. They're always the same as far as plot development and such go. It all starts off the same: A group of badly charecterised people go into a A) deserted house in the middle of nowhere, B) deserted island in the middle of nowhere, C) space ship or a station in the middle of nowhere, and they get killed one by one. I don't see how it's supposed to be exciting, but since they still make flicks like this, I suppose it is. So, as you propably could already tell, the character development in this flick is terrible. We don't really get anything out of anyone up until the final twenty minutes, when we find out something "shocking" about one of the people on the island. And no, I am not talking about the killer. Also, all the characters are awful stereotypes, but the plot does require it, since the killer... well, kills them, based on their own weaknesses so to speak. Such as one person wants to smoke, so the killer kills that person using cigarettes. So yeah, that makes the kills sound somewhat original, which they are. Too bad that most special effects either look awfully CGI or simply extremely fake. And what the hell happened to realism in movies like this? Here the killer is constantly setting up new traps and such within seconds, when other characters don't look at him/her. It truly is absolutely unbelievable how fast of a runner he/she is. Also, the way the killer's identity is eventually revealed is absolutely hilarious, because Harlin uses the most ridicilous sound clip ever in that scene.
Harlin's directing in this film is terribly cliched. He can direct well, as proven by Die Hard 2 and Cliffhanger, but here he reveals the killer within the first twenty minutes by simply showing him/her far too little, and since the killer makes it to the final four survivors, you immediately know it's him by then atleast, if not before. Renny does do a pretty decent job in milking the fine looking enviroments for good shots, but audiovisually does badly, since he uses extremely cliched heavy metal solos or random music that apparently comes from an old James Bond-movie. It just didn't work whatsoever. I'm amazed how he got such a good cast he has here. All the actors don't give it all they could, but they're still far better than in Traditional Slasher #9645, and amp the film up quite a bit. I especially digged LL Cool J's charismatic acting here.
But the thing is, this movie is such a cliche bomb, and unoriginal on nearly all bases. Everything you've seen in this movie, you've propably seen before, or atleast read before incase you've read And Then There Were None by Agatha Christie. There's just no point in watching this movie, and it basically serves as cannon fodder of some sort.... Just a very average movie with a good cast.