I see morons and imbeciles

Rating: 1/10 (30 January 2009)

Everybody's favourite "intelligent" horror/mystery-thriller, with everybody's favourite twist ending. You already know the story, so I'll fast-forward directly to the bashing.
Shyamalan fancies himself a great artist, not content with "only" telling a story. Fair enough. The last positive thing I will say in this review is that he has a keen eye for cinematography, if nothing else. Unfortunately, pretty pictures and "art shots" are not enough to make a good director, or film, and cinematography is indeed the movie's actual preoccupation. Manoj deliberately tries to carve out visual trademarks by over-staging every scene, and this takes up a large part of the near two hours. The colour red is seen here and there, carrying "symbolic significance". A good director would spend his time inspiring his actors to pass for human beings, but then again, Mr. Night might not be a good director. Few characters in his pictures actually behave like real people.
And acting here is non-existent. A vacuum. In Shyamalan's other movies, at least people appear to be reading from scripts. Now, Bruce Willis is one of the few remaining action stars with trace amounts of Y-chromosomes, and has charisma enough to carry a movie, but his talents for "subtle" drama like this are somewhat yonder. Frankly, I can't think of a less suitable actor for this kind of role (child psychologist). Sure enough, within the first five minutes we are treated to a prolonged shot of an award plaque, with Willis' wife actually spelling out for us the superlatives it contains. This is so that we'll know that Willis' character is "brilliant". Manoj misunderstood the concept of "show, don't tell", a fundamental narrative tool, which means that Willis shows us his brilliance through his actions, not by bluntly telling us "he's brilliant!". Low class there, but it gets even worse.
The kid does nothing but whisper through the entire movie. This is his brilliant, Oscar-nominated acting? Other than that, people sit around a lot, broods a lot, whispers some more. The kid sees dead people everywhere, which gives rise to a bunch of "scary moments" (with loud music playing every time a closet door suddenly opens, or whatever), but without actually advancing the story. They're just there for cheesy "Boo! I bet you didn't see THAT coming!" effects that were old news in the '70s already. The entire middle half of the movie is superfluous and could be cut out, since it seems to have little to do with the framing device, which is Willis' character. Really, time has never moved slower than when watching this movie.
As for weak horror, the kid actually states early on that the ghosts are looking for "help" rather than haunting or causing mischief. OK, so there is not even a threat of harm? Then what is the point of having scene after scene with "made you jump!"-scares, when our beloved heroes are not even in danger at any one point? I'll tell you the point, the point is to water down the "horror" genre to be suitable for children, which ideally will broaden the revenue base. Producers didn't take long to understand this, and now this kind of diaper horror is the norm.
Plot holes abound. The biggest is that Willis' dead character doesn't notice, until the very end of the movie, that nobody except the boy (who is some kind of medium) interacts with him. Willis meets with the kid in a professional context, but who made the appointment with Willis, if he was already dead? The kid himself? I don't THINK so. Later, Willis has been let into the house of the boy's mother, and the mother is actually sitting there next to him. They never interact. Yet we are to believe that Willis was let into the house and seated, and neither greeted nor was seen by the kid's mother, who was SITTING RIGHT NEXT TO HIM AT THE START OF THE SCENE. Yet another scene has dead Willis eating dinner with his wife. Apparently, they didn't speak to each other, and Willis didn't notice this? Manoj tricks the audience here, by having the wife talk to herself in such a manner that it APPEARS that she is talking to Willis.
There are enough absurdities here to build a ladder to the moon, which M. Night and his fanboys have tried to justify with the cop-out notion that "Willis only sees what he wants to see". Neat, isn't it? Sure spares Shyamalan the effort of wrapping up the mess he created. Suffice it to say that the perhaps most telling sign of a director's incompetence is that he has to cheat his audience in order to keep the story together. Even Spielberg, the devil's handpicked lieutenant on earth, doesn't resort to this low form of audience manipulation.
Personally, I find that movies that rely on gimmick twists, as opposed to honest atmosphere and ACTING, do not hold up to repeated viewings. Even if your IQ is likely to turn up on a craps roll, and you DIDN'T see the twist coming, how can you watch this hogwash over again KNOWING what will be the big surprise? The disturbing part is that millions of drugged lemmings actually DID go to see this movie a second time, to pick up all the clues that made them miss the finale the first time around. The nightman got rich, and invested his efforts in another triumphant masterpiece, "Unbreakable".
Here's my screenplay: Bruce Willis gets shot. Dies. The end. Osment and Manoj remain unknown.
Shyamalan is a disease. I've seen a number of his movies just to reassure myself, and the man is a complete criminal. I am on a crusade, and I will not rest until he is indicted for his offences against art, taste and logic.
Lowest possible rating.