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As M Night Shyamalan's contemporary paranoia thriller enters its overwrought final act, Mark Wahlberg stares dumbfounded at the camera and gasps, "Can this really be happening?"

The leading man whimpers for us all because this apocalyptic tale of survival is laughable and preposterous.

The white-knuckle tension, which Shyamalan generates in a tour-de-force opening 10 minutes, evaporates the instant the characters open their mouths.

Unthinkably, the writer-director shoots most scenes uncomfortably close-up so there is no escape from the look of terror etched on actors' faces as they muse the shape of hot dogs, the sexual politics of sharing tiramisu or ulterior motives for purchasing cough syrup.

Opening scenes in Central Park and surrounding areas of New York are truly unsettling, and as long as the film clings to delicious ambiguities - are the deaths the result of a terrorist attack, radiation from a nuclear accident, a botched government experiment? - we're willing to grant Shyamalan the benefit of the doubt.

However, as soon as he declares what forces are really at work bringing about mankind's day of reckoning, we lose all interest. It's rather apt that the film should be released on Friday 13th - unlucky for anyone who buys a ticket.

3:46pm Friday 13th June 2008

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