A return to form

Rating: 6/10 (10 September 2017)

Shyamalan has made some abortions in film recently such as The Happening and Signs, however Split is a return to what made him a great writer/director in the first place. Split is a competent horror/thriller film which has a decent plot, is well shot and has great actors in it. The story is simple enough to follow with some quite intriguing scenes, like when we are first introduced to the different personalities that Kevin has. Some of the best scenes in the movie are when you see Kevin's different personalities coming to the surface and interacting with each other. For instance it's really interesting to watch Dennis and Patricia work together in the same body.
The plot has no twist scenes at the end like a lot of Shyamalan's other work which is a departure from the norm but not so much as it leaves the audience wanting more or confused about anything. As well thought out as the plot is there are some moments that are too formulaic for me personally. For instance Casey is an abused by her uncle and is a "weird kid" in school that only gets invited to parties out of sympathy. This kind of character has been done so many times that it does not wow me anymore when I'm watching (no matter how "cute" the child actor playing young Casey is! I just don't give a shi*).
Casey's two friends have little character development in the film. They are only in there to get naked and die off screen, which is as deep as their characters go. Nothing more to be said. The woman therapist is at least more interesting than the two victims. She is trying to understand these people with multiple personalities and what they can do but unfortunately gets captured and killed by Kevin or Dennis or Patricia or "the Beast". Whichever one.
James McAvoy is brilliant in this film and he is what makes this film. The plot helps out but what brings it up a notch is McAvoy's performance. He does a great job of giving depth to all of the multiple personalities he plays and the sense of suspense and violence when he is playing "the beast" is really well done. In this movie he cries on command too which I always think is the mark of a great actor. If you can't cry on command you are a sh*t actor in my opinion!!
There are not too many jump scares in this "horror/thriller" which is a good thing as jump scares are just cheap ways of scaring the audience and are only in awful horror films ,this film is actually competent and doesn't do that thank god. Instead it has a character that is unpredictable and that is where the fear for this film comes from. Kevin has all of these personalities that are unique with some being safe and some personalities being dangerous and you never know which one is "in the light".
The sound is competently done with no out of place music and suspenseful score music when there is a suspenseful scene. It did not WOW me in the way that other movies used sound but it wasn't done badly at all. The sound is just competentthat's all. The use of colour in this film is also competent but nothing too shout about. Because it is a thriller the colour of this movie is turned down so even the colourful bits of the movie look darker. I wish they had done something different as this is done in most horror movies and something different would have been nice but oh well can't have anything in life.
Overall after the fuc**ng dog sh*t that was The Happening, Avatar, After Earth, The Village, Lady in the Water and Signs it is great to get a decent movie from M. Knight. This film does not break new ground and is formulaic in most parts with character development being quite low. However McAvoy lends his talents to this film. The pacing is competent so as you are not at all bored whilst watching and the story is interesting with no glaring plot holes like Signs. M. Knight is returning to form after a run of bulls**t movies and I will actually go and see his next film in the cinema..and Signs Fu**ing sucked!!!!!