The concept was not unique, but the details leading to the 3 hour crisis was very original. The CGI was pretty good, up until the final few minutes. I liked most of the characters. And I cried a river during the last 25-30 minutes. And watching this with commercial interruptions was a nightmare. Other than that...a nice idea. Nevertheless, the story could have been compressed into something a LOT shorter then over 3 hours. There was too much time spent on relationships between the main scientist (looking like she was going to a formal event all during the movie;), and the scientist who was a widowed father; too much time spent between the widowed father and his children; too too much time spent either the European scientist and his fiancée; etc. And James Cromwell was wasted except for a few emotional minutes. So if you cut down these interactions, up the CGI quality for the last 20 minutes...you have a masterpiece.
