by ctaulbee » Sep Fri 14, 2018 12:54 am
M. Night Shyamalan has disappointed me a lot since his first cool films The Sixth Sense (1999) and Signs (2002).
Bringing me garbage like The Village (2004), Devil (2010) or that horrid debacle The Last Airbender (2010) my god that one was unbelievably bad.
There are other sad entries on his ledger too including The Happening (2008), Lady in the Water (2006), After Earth (2013) and yes Unbreakable (2000) also makes the thumbs down list from me, I thought it was terrible.
I haven't seen Split (2016) due to my own reservations on M. Night Shyamalan ever being able to make a watchable film again and reviews like these:
Three teenage girls are held captive in a grimy building somewhere by a madman with 23 personalities, but at least they aren't trapped in a theater watching this exercise in tedium from vaunted master of surprise M. Night Shyamalan. -J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader
This is a filmmaker with almost no real talent for coherence, originality or purpose and in spite of his insistence on audience secrecy, his overly contrived plots are easy to figure out before the beginning of the second reel. -Rex Reed, New York Observer
Shyamalan has returned to what he loves to do: use cheap horror tropes to create his own harebrained mythos.
-David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture
Split isn't a disaster; it's just all over the place and not nearly as effective as it should be for something with such a good premise and performances. -Lindsey Bahr, Associated Press
"Split" takes a step in this direction by positing that "mental sickness" might not always be an actual illness - but then takes two steps back by exploiting moviegoers' fears that people with unusual mental conditions can be unpredictably violent. -Matthew Rozsa, Salon.com
Even the positive reviews were not so favorable more lukewarm...
So I'd have to see some big box office numbers plus raves from top critics to make me "want" to see it... lol.