A very well-made & suspenseful thriller, though not perfect. Jodie Foster and her young daughter move into a huge old house that has a "panic room" in it. Unknown to them at the time they move in, the panic room conceals a large stash of money. Immediately after they move into the house, 3 bad guys show up to recover the money, and they expect the house to be empty. Forest Whittaker is the "nice" bad guy -- all he wants is the money, no trouble or violence. The other 2 crooks are a little more intense about recovering the loot and not too concerned about what has to be done to get from here to there.

A significant flaw is that early on, it's established that the bad guys want something that's in the panic room. But it never dawns on Foster and her daughter to figure out what that might be and offer it up. We find out late in the move *why* that strategy wouldn't have worked, but there's never any explanation earlier when the question seems obvious. Also, the bad guys offer up some comic relief that seems out of place sometimes.

Apparently the entire movie was scanned in digitally so that effects could be added in the digital domain, then printed to film again. The movie looks OK but seems to lack fine detail. The upside of the effects work is the camera gets to move around and do things that would be physically impossible. This is all seamlessly done.

So anyway, overall I liked it.

And what about that gas explosion? My knowledge of propane would have it heavier than air, yet the explosion was up on the ceiling. Surviving that was hard to swallow.

I personally refrain from comparing any movie to another unless it begs to be compared, as if it were a remake, a redo, or just a really bad copy.

Like Idle Hands was a terrible copy of Evil Dead.

When I go and see it this week, I will come back and decide if Mr. Fincher has created another classic, like Seven and Fight Club, or a dud, like Alien 3 (that was his wasn't it?).

I too liked the movie, even during screening. Sometimes, a movie is more enjoyable with a crowd, than by yourself. I liked the opening credits that made them look like they were part of the buildings.

OK, what was the deal with the magnet being left on? Did I miss something crucial to the storyline?

On the title design, it was a neat visual idea; however, it seemed a bit cumbersome as well since every title listing demanded its own edit and shot setup. It seemed a little disjointed overall. At least they chose a bold weight of Copperplate Gothic rather than lapsing back to Trajan (although Jodie Foster's name is set in Trajan at the top of the movie poster one sheet).

The gas tank mentioned earlier in this thread was indeed a propane tank and was labeled as such. The blue green flames from the explosion looked nothing like the deep blue flame I typically see from a propane gas barbeque grille.

Here's an added wrinkle that bothered me about that gas incident. Propane is indeed heavier than air. If the characters had breathed in the gas, they would likely pass out and even stop breathing because of the weight of the gas. And then there is a possibility that pipe at the bottom of the room would have just drained out all the gas. So, either the gas inflow would possibly kill the panic room occupants quickly or not have any effect at all.