Surprise and Disappointment

Rating: Null/10 (31 July 2004)

I went into Shayamalan's latest film expected to be frightened and tricked. Though the first roughly hour of the film was pretty suspenseful and had some nice heart-stopping moments, I thought Shayamalan's twists were a bit over-used in this work. After about 3-4 major plot 'surprises,' I found that they began to get in the way of the plot and decreased my enjoyment immensely.
My problem with them was that rather than trust his audience, sprinkle the film with nuance, and smack them with something big in the end, Shayamalan opted instead to slap his audience in the face with twists every 10 minutes or so.
After a while, it seemed to me that Shayamalan's flair for incorporating the terrors of everyday people with frighteningly possible results has been lost to an overwhelming desire on his part to ensure that everyone understands what he's saying. "The world is full of crime! It's bad!" We got it with the SUBTLE hinting before you smashed us over the head with it.
Overall, I thought this was an awkward and forced attempt at creating a thriller with a worldly message that ultimately failed. Though there were some nice elements to the movie (the story between Ivy and Lucius is interesting, and there are a few good scares), I was sorely disappointed by the lack of tact and regard for the audience on the part of the director.