Ensofter Overrated and overhyped

FrogGlace In other words,this film is a surreal ride.

SanEat A film with more than the usual spoiler issues. Talking about it in any detail feels akin to handing you a gift-wrapped present and saying, "I hope you like it -- It's a thriller about a diabolical secret experiment."

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Leofwine_draca I saw HOURS described as a disaster movie but it's anything but. Instead it's a single location character drama for the most part, as the late Paul Walker is the sole resident of an evacuated hospital in New Orleans at the time of Hurricane Katrina. He can't leave as he has to keep his premature baby's incubator running by hand. Instead of thrills and spills, this is a quiet and dialogue based, exploring universal themes of courage and parenthood, grief and responsibility. Walker's okay - he was always a better actor than people expected given his popularity in the Fast & Furious films - but the pacing is slow and the direction fails to inspire, the movie only coming to life in the last 20 minutes or so.

knappgerd I was not expecting much and I got less. Walker is not a good actor. And he is not enough of an actor to carry a movie by himself. But he is not the main problem. The problem is that you know what will happen at any point in time. Yes. There will be a fight scenes. Yes. There will be a rescue scene. Yea. There will be more cheesy scenes than you can bear. And yes. There is an animal. Movie ticks all those boxes. But it is just not entertaining. And of course rescue comes at just the right time. Thank god it came after ninety minutes. I watched it until the end to be able to write a review. This was a waste of time.

Dave McClain It kind of surprised me when I realized that there hadn't been any major movies about Hurricane Katrina and the devastation it brought to New Orleans and much of the Gulf Coast in 2005 – until "Hours" (PG-13, 1:37) hit theaters. Like many smart filmmakers, Eric Heisserer, who wrote this film and also directs (for the first time), tells a very big story through the experiences of a very small group of people. His approach personalizes the real life disaster and makes it easier to appreciate, as in "Titanic", "Pearl Harbor" and "The Impossible", the 2012 film about a tsunami hitting Thailand."Hours" adds to its degree of difficulty by allowing one actor to carry the vast majority of the film (like Robert Redford in 2013's "All is Lost", and especially Tom Hanks in the 2000 film "Cast Away"). This whole situation is all the more poignant because the star of "Hours", Paul Walker, didn't live to see this movie released. Walker plays Nolan Hayes, a New Orleans resident, who takes his wife, Abby (Genesis Rodriguez), to a local hospital when complications arise with her pregnancy. Abby dies and Nolan's baby girl is not yet breathing on her own, needing to be on a respirator for about 48 hours.Then, Hurricane Katrina robs the hospital of its power and the subsequent flooding takes out the back-up generators and forces the hospital to evacuate all its patients, staff, nurses and doctors. Since the baby can't be moved, Nolan remains there alone to keep her alive (using a generator which he must crank by hand every 2-3 minutes), while trying to signal for help and protecting himself and his little girl from various other dangers that the disaster brings their way. Minutes stretch into hours and Nolan grows increasingly desperate for help to arrive before either he or his baby succumbs to their overwhelming circumstances."Hours" is both an excellent thriller and a great drama and is the kind of movie that can even make a tough guy tear up. Walker is remarkable in this film. He does the best acting of his career, striking the perfect balance between his considerable emotional depth and his boyish charm. The tragedy and tension in the movie competed for my emotional attention with the sadness I felt believing that this film could have been a game-changer for Paul Walker's career. Either way, "Hours" deserves an "A".

Violet Weed I like this movie, so far, but I've only seen 40 minutes of it so far (on my roku netflix channel). The thing is that it is sad that Paul Walker died so young, my dad died at the same age too (only in 1967). Early 40s didn't seem 'so young' when I was in my 20s, but now I'm in pushing towards 70, yes, it is young. The problem I have with Paul Walker is that he started dating his girlfriend when she was sixteen (the girlfriend he still had when he died).... but HE WAS THIRTY-THREE at the time, and his own daughter was 16 too. Now there's no way a 16-year-old girl could have anything about her that would captivate a MAN of 33 except for a young body. But folks, this is not 1854, it's 2014. A 16-year-old GIRL with a 33-year-old MAN is simply PAEDOPHILIA in action. I mean, Mr. Walker didn't even leave that girl anything in his will. Nothing. Obviously he didn't care much about her, huh. Since he was, after all, just an actor (aka 'a parrot') and he didn't look very smart, it is 'possible' that he connected with her on her intellectual level. Who knows. But it still stinks... it's a sorry state of affairs (no pun intended) that the world lets 'famous' people like Elvis Presley, Roman Polanski, and probably Paul Walker, get away with child abuse. Roman Polanski had perverted people like Angelica Huston sticking up for his sexual abuse of a 13-year-old girl, by claiming that the 'girl' was 'a lot older' than her actual age. There are a lot of deviants in Hollywood. To BLAME a 13-year-old's sexual abuse on that 13-year-old, well, it just makes me wonder whether or not Angelica was abused by HER father, John Huston, and so she thought it was 'normal and natural' for an older ADULT MAN to rape her. I don't know. But when I found out about Paul Walker's girlfriend, I lost what little respect I had for him (which wasn't much because all he had was a pretty face, kinda like Brad Pitt and other pretty-boy actors (although of course Brad Pitt is not really a 'boy' any more). I wonder if I will like this movie by the time it's over, in an hour. hmmm.