Heads in the right direction but doesn't fully utilize its potential

Rating: 6/10 (26 April 2017)

Split is a psychological thriller, not a horror. Everything this movie delivers, together with all suspense, culminates in the final few scenes. So don't expect seeing a movie in which particular scenes alone make sense or are able to scare you. It's like a one coherent experience in which what is to happen heavily depends on what has happened. And it develops slowly.
As the story continues you somehow get to know one person with many different personalities. All of them stand as characters in themselves but tell one story about a particular individual named Kevin. Kevin kidnaps three teenage girls who serve as interlocutors; they don't take pivotal role. Split is not about them and their effort to escape. This is not escape the room stuff.
Seeing how many different personalities interchange in between as if they were not manifestations of a single person is what makes Split so interesting. To help you understand what may be going on inside of Kevin's head, a woman psychologist is utilized as a facilitator. So you get to see Kevin (and some of his personalities) interact with several different characters as to bring about better understanding of why kidnapping and split syndrome. Let me mention that it's not all about Kevin only as you'll get to see as the final moments approach.
McAvoy deserves every single applause he had got. Even critics who didn't like the movie thought acting on his part was excellent. Three young actresses who played girls that got kidnapped did what they were supposed to do. They're not spoiled or stubborn as teens in some other horrors.
I gave it a six because I found the story of 23 different personalities as almost being an excuse for horrible things. Yes, at the bottom Split deals with very difficult and important issues of mental health and wounds we get from the love ones. No matter how sad his story may be, Kevin is a deranged and mentally unstable kidnapper. There's a moment where psychologists says that people like Kevin may have unlocked secret potentials and so somehow surpassed other people. This is pure wishful thinking which Shyamalan apparently took seriously. I may be wrong, but this quaint taste is what I had been left with after seeing it. Other than that, there are several boring and unnecessary parts which should have been replaced with something more interesting. There was a plenty of material for Shyamalan to do that given this topic.
So to conclude. Split is somewhat original in his attempts to deal with serious issues like mental scars, but you'll enjoy it as much as your views on this issues allow you to.