Intriguing and original

Rating: 7/10 (5 September 2002)

I am not the biggest fan of "The Sixth Sense" and don't believe it deserved quite as much word of mouth as it received, but I can't completely discredit the film. It is well-done and quite intriguing. I recently bought the DVD, since it was used and I purchased it for a cheap price. Plus, I was curious about how it would feel watching it for a second time. I watched it in theaters and thought it was pretty good, but like many others I wanted to see it again to try to uncover clues I didn't perceive the first time around and discover certain elements that I may have overlooked. I still don't think it's a great movie, but it was interesting watching it and keeping in mind the big plot twist at the end. As I watched it, the twist made a lot of sense and M. Night Shamalyan didn't just sneak it in for shock value. He obviously put a lot of thought into both creating this big surprise and making it credible. When I accessed the "Rules and Clues" feature on the DVD, that confirmed my theories and exposed a few details that I didn't even notice on the second viewing.
The acting is good all-around. Bruce Willis gives, probably, his most low-key performance up-to-date. He is both compelling and convincing, not getting in the audience's face with a showy dramatic performance. Haley Joel Osment was the perfect choice for Cole, and I don't think the phrase, "I see dead people," would be the same coming out of any other child actor's mouth. A good child actor is hard to find, and Haley Joel is one of the few who I can actually say measures up to a good deal of adult actors. He's not "good for a little kid"; he's just a good actor period. His Oscar nomination was well-deserved. His acting is very subtle, not broad in any way. Toni Collette also deserved her Oscar nomination. I don't live in Philadelphia, so I can't technically judge whether or not her accent was "on target," but I know for sure that she pulled off a flawless American accent. And she went the extra mile by taking on a dialect. Just like Osment, her acting is very subtle and you sense the pain and anguish she feels as a single mother of this estranged kid without her having to continuously sob and burst into tears. Actors should know that you don't need to cry to express sadness. 9 times out of 10, people try their best to hold back the tears--at least when they're in public or in front of other people. Donnie Wahlberg makes a short but memorable appearance as one of Willis's former patients, and actually plays an important role in the story as you will learn.
What I didn't like about "The Sixth Sense"? Altogether, it's slow-moving and surely could've used some editing. And some of the dialogue is corny and stilted. I wouldn't classify this as a "scary movie." Some have deemed this as one of the scariest movies of all time. To that I say "Hell no." I think of it more as a sci-fi/mystery. It's not always entertaining, but it's intriguing and gives your brain a lot of work.
If you decide to rent or purchase the DVD, another fun feature to check out is Shamalyan's (very very) first movie--as in he was 12 years old and shot it with his own video camera. They only show a clip from the movie and, as he said, it's awful--but it's always fun to watch famous or up-and-coming directors' work back when they were starting amateurs. Like he says, if you watch this crappy movie, you will understand why Shamalyan doesn't do special f/x. I gotta admire the guy. If I were releasing one of my films on DVD (in the far future) I wouldn't show my first movie--a crappy "X Files" film that I shot back in junior year of high school as a project for my TV Production class. That really takes guts.
My score: 7 (out of 10)