What makes it different from others?

Very good movie overall, highly recommended. Most of the negative reviews don't have any merit and are all pollitically based. Give this movie a chance at least, and it might give you a different perspective.

The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.

True to its essence, the characters remain on the same line and manage to entertain the viewer, each highlighting their own distinctive qualities or touches.

Hey look, if slow-mo machine gun fire an unexplained random "supernatural stuff" is yer thing... then go for it.I got sucked in by the cast - but O'Toole is laughable and Affleck shows why he has is a success - good looks and good one liners - otherwise no talent.Shreiber is great, but after that this is a total big hollywood bit of nonsense. If you don't need a real plot and like 'explosions and stuff'.. its fer you.

Dr. Jennifer Pailey (Joanna Going) returns to the small town of Snowfield, Colorado with her sister Lisa (Rose McGowan) to find dead bodies. Is it disease, toxins, or is there a killer on the loose? They run into Sheriff Bryce Hammond (Ben Affleck) and his deputies Stuart Wargle (Liev Schreiber) and Steve Shanning. Strange things keep happening and Shanning is gone. Hammond calls for outside military help to put up roadblocks. Wargle is attacked by a mysterious creature. The FBI interviews academic Dr. Timothy Flyte (Peter O'Toole) who thinks this is an ancient evil which wiped out many civilizations before. He is brought to the military as an adviser.This starts out good as the two sisters find a desolate town. It's got a nice creepy sense. The starting five is solid. It would be great if O'Toole joins the group as the sixth inside the town. Instead he's outside and the movie brings in the military. It tries to explain things which don't necessarily make sense. It's a whole new set of characters taking the point in the battle. By the time O'Toole joins the Paileys and Hammond, the mess has already been made. The second half collapses after a promising first half.

I revisited "Phantoms" (1998) the other night, and I thought I'd just speak up briefly here on its behalf. Because this critically and popularly panned movie is one that I happened to like.Ben Affleck actually wasn't "'the bomb' in "Phantoms.'" (Referring to something as "the bomb" was, at one time, a high compliment in American slang.) He mostly phoned it in, and even seriously flubbed a scene or two. (Hey, I actually like the guy a lot, and I'm willing to give him a chance as the next Batman.) The headline above is actually some particularly meta humor from another character played by Affleck, in Kevin Smith's "Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back" (2001). Affleck was poking fun at himself a little here, along with his fellow denizens of Smith's "View Askewniverse."Roger Ebert dismissed "Phantoms" as "another one of those Gotcha! thrillers in which loathsome slimy creatures leap out of drain pipes and sewers and ingest supporting actors, while the stars pump bullets into them." You can read his entire review right here:http://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/phantoms-1998No, "Phantoms" isn't classic sci-fi-horror. It's sometimes pretty thin stuff on a number of levels … but primarily the levels of acting and screen writing.But, dammit, I still liked this movie a lot. If you're a fan of the book (I've suggested it's Koontz' best), you'll be happy to discover that it indeed conscientiously sticks to its wicked-cool source material. We see a small Colorado mountain town where all the inhabitants have vanished; a clutch of wayward visitors then try to escape the same grisly, mysterious fate as its residents.)The book's central plot device is a nicely conceived and executed idea for a monster, with some effectively creepy historical and scientific context. (I can still remember a colonial victim's warning, which is referenced in the book, but not the movie: "It has no shape; it has every shape.")Despite its clunky script, the film brings us a story that is pretty intelligent — thanks to retaining so many elements of the novel. This is a thinking man's monster movie — like somebody rewrote "Beware the Blob" (1972), but put a hell of a lot of smarts and creativity into it. We've got two groups of bright people who fight back against "the Ancient Enemy," and their actions and strategies generally make sense.Also … Liev Schreiber does creepy incredibly well, and Peter O'Toole does everything incredibly well. The former's face and mannerisms do much to unsettle us. And the latter brings the "Lawrence of Arabia" (1962) treatment to the fifties-esque trope of the monster- fighting hero scientist.Finally, this might be an odd thing to praise a film for, but I loved its sound effects. Because that voice (or voices) on the story's single working telephone was exactly how I wanted the adversary here to sound.Slam it all you want. I'll watch this one again.

Sadly the basis of the book was not translated very well to the big screen, now that special effects are much improved, it may be time to rekindle the dying embers of what should have been a great film.The taunting of the people in Snowfield, the arrival and setup of a cordon, the reason why Santa Mira police were there in the first place were all dismissed. Sadly in many ways, the whole point of the movie wasn't really realised because they were so focused on getting to the end that they seem to have entirely forgotten about the story, no suspense moments whatsoever, no what's gonna happen next..It was a major disappointment sadly because it didn't get the treatment it deserved; it should have been so much better, one can only hope that the script is redone; with a better understanding of the book and the nature of the story.