Great acting, but see Blair Witch if you want a scare...

Rating: 8/10 (25 August 1999)

I recently saw this movie after many of my friends and acquaintances showered it with compliments. Keep in mind that this is after I've already seen Blair Witch, which was incredible (not to mention terrifying).

The Sixth Sense's shining star (say that 5 times fast) was Haley Joel Osment, who played a leading role as Cole Sear. This young actor is BRILLIANT. It always gets me when certain children can grasp the rules of the stage so easily. I was stunned by his incredible performance as the troubled boy, Cole Sear, who "sees dead people" and who is passed off as schizophrenic or delusional. He can trust no psychologist, and his paranoia has many reasons.
An award-winning psychologist, however, slowly wins this boy's trust. Bruce Willis, playing Dr. Malcolm Crowe, actually surprised me in the nature of his performance. Yes, we all know Bruce Willis as the blood-and-grime-streaked action hero-- but in The Sixth Sense, he is uncharacteristically good as this very caring psychologist, who is marred by a terrible tragedy. (I cannot reveal what this is or I'd spoil an important part of the movie.)
Malcolm is so dedicated to his work as a child psychologist that he begins to forget about spending time with his wife, and having a life of his own again. This may seem trite and overdone in most movies, but is a serious problem in real life and is portrayed fairly well here. Cole must convince Malcolm to help him (believing Malcolm is the only one who will be able to rid him of the ghosts) but this forces Dr. Crowe to decide between his work with Cole... or his own family.
M. Night Shyamalan did well with the plot in that it hasn't been done much before, but the movie absolutely did not succeed in being scary (if that was his intent). It was so utterly obvious when something frightening was going to happen, because the music would increase in volume up until the event for somewhere around a whole minute. It wasn't even FUNNY, like in Scream. I do usually like James Newton Howard's scores; ER, The Fugitive and Flatliners are wonderful, but I guess it's not really his fault he had to do some of the things he did in Sixth Sense.
This blatant, failed attempt at suspense totally brought my rating of this movie down, just because it was so overdone. There were a few tear-jerking minutes in the movie, and the ending was actually a little surprising (the ONLY suspenseful part in the movie). There's a big "yeah, right" factor in certain parts as well, think about it if you've seen the movie. Overall though, I'd say it was a fairly good movie, especially because of young Mr. Osment. He is destined for great things... I'd rate this movie a 7 out of 10.