entertaining, thoughtful, but not "The Sixth Sense"

Rating: 8/10 (5 August 2002)

Shyamalan manages to stay with his franchise (mystical and optimistic) without repeating himself. It's not a great movie, or even as good as "The Sixth Sense" (which I think is close to, but not quite, a great movie), but it is solid entertainment. I've seen complaints about the ending, but I found it fair and consistent with the rest of the movie.

Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix give strong, understated performances, and the rest of the cast is good (I found Shyamalan's cameo the weakest, but he's adequate -- it's just that the rest of the cast is very good). The Culkin kid gives a "Culkin kid" performance, but he was well cast so it works fine. And the little girl is as cute as a bug.
I find it hard to write reviews of his movies since so much of the pleasure of the movie depends on figuring out what's going on. This movie has less of that than TSS or Unbreakable, but it's still part of the movie, so try not to learn too much before seeing it.