I’ve never not liked Michael Shannon in a movie, but his Sundance movie “Take Shelter,” in which the Oscar nominee for “Revolutionary Road” once again plays a guy coming apart at the scenes, is a movie that left me thinking, “So what?”

Shannon plays a hard-hat dad in a rural area whose apocalyptic nightmares gradually convince him to build a storm shelter in which he intends to wait out a near-apocalyptic event. He plays this loving husband and father (his daughter is deaf) with great sensitivity as the character wonders whether he needs medication or perhaps psychiatric help.

Every viewer, of course, will be assuming that his dark visions are prophetic, not just the product of madness (although his mother was diagnosed with schizophrenia at about the same age he is now). Yet the movie doesn’t move forward into the next act. It just repeats scene after scene of Shannon building the shelter and waking up from nightmares. The ending is abrupt and disappointing, with virtually no key questions answered.

This movie has the rough feel of M. Night Shyamalan pictures like “Signs” and “The Happening,” but after an hour or so, all signs point to nothing much happening. A director can’t let the audience get ahead of him and wait for the picture to catch up. The audience will get bored.