M. Did A Good Job

Rating: 7/10 (21 January 2017)

I saw "Split", starring James McAvoy-The X-Men movies, The Chronicles of Narnia:The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe; Anya Taylor-Joy-Morgan, The Witch; Haley Lu Richardson-The Edge of Seventeen, The Bronze and Betty Buckley-Pretty Little Liars_tv, Eight is Enough_tv.
This is a tense thriller that is written & directed by M. Night Shyamalan, who has had some ups and downs as far as his movie successes have gone. He did good on this one. James plays a man with 23 distinct personalities and he does a great job portraying each one of them with unique, individual physical gestures and even facial movements. Betty plays his psychiatrist that is trying to help him cope with DID- Dissociative Identity Disorder-which used to be just called having multiple personalities. Along comes a 24th personality called the Beast that takes charge and makes James kidnap 3 teen-aged girls and seclude them in a basement. Anya happened to be at a party for Haley when James makes his move on his intended targets of Haley and her other friend so Anya is just at the wrong place at the wrong time. But, there is more to things than first thought, as to be expected in M.'s movies. The rest of the movie has the girls trying to escape while James visits Betty to try to straighten himself out before the Beast takes complete control. Oh yeah, M. makes a cameo appearance and there is a connection to one of M.'s other movies-it is better to be surprised than for me to give it away here. It's rated "PG-13" for behavior, violence and language and has a running time of 1 hour & 57 minutes. I enjoyed it and would buy it on DVD.