One of the best character performances in a great psychological thriller

Rating: 7/10 (12 February 2017)

"Split" is M. Night Shyamalan return to forms. It was really a character act, upon viewing it really does seem like a sort of supervillain origin story (the ending does sort of reveal /confirm this). The way that the film depicts the character of Kevin is stellar due to the acting and narrative flow. I thought that this is a very solid psychological thriller, one that we haven't gotten a lot of recently.
The film manages a steady pace with a very intense theme that is enforced by the films brilliant score. This was something I really liked, the build up to the reveal, the way we slowly peel away at this character. However I do feel that the trailers sort of spoil it for us and it might be more effective if nothing is given away however that probably wouldn't work marketing wise.
The way that James McAvoy depicts each individual personality is amazing, the way he contorts himself, squeezes his brows together or stand upright, subtle details like that make it a performance to watch out for. The female lead, Anya Taylor-Joy was also really good in her role and was great at depicting this cold, broken individual. The way she intuitively was able to calmly decipher the situation and identify what to do made her character great. The film really thrives at unravelling these two character's past in a very great way.
However once we enter the last act where the final personality dubbed "the beast" is unleashed i feel the film starts to go down hill, this is the most action heavy part of the film however it may be pushing the boundaries a little with the development of the personality. It was horrendous to see how this such well crafted and built up character crawl around on walls like spiderman. This was a really kind of off putting ending however it was well resolved in terms of having an amazing epilogue in which kicks off with Taylor-Joy's character giving a final emotional stare, as she contemplates which is worst, returning to her abusive and sexually harassing uncle or to have just been locked up here for ever. Followed up by the reveal that this movie sets place in the same universe as "Unbreakable". Setting up the potential Unbreakable trilogy.