Trap (2024)

If you've seen the trailer for Trap then you know how the film is set to play out. There's no extra twist, which itself feels like a twist, considering that this is another thriller written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan. But maybe we should let Shyamalan try new things, considering he hasn't helmed something fully successful for over two decades now. Yes, you can find elements to enjoy in some of his other movies, but none have come close to the strong run he had at the turn of the century.

Josh Hartnett plays Cooper, a loving father accompanying his daughter (Riley, played by Ariel Donoghue) to a teen pop concert. The pop star on stage is Lady Raven (played by Saleka Shyamalan), but there's also a lot happening elsewhere in the venue. The whole thing has been turned into an operation to catch a notorious serial killer. They know he is attending the concert with his child, but can they catch him before he causes mayhem at the concert.

I won't say that this is completely unwatchable. There's some fun to be had, and it's worth your time, but that is all thanks to the entertainingly over the top performance from Hartnett, who often feels as if he's walked in from a completely different film. If the main premise had been finessed and treated more carefully then this could have been a really fun time, but I sadly have to join the chorus of voices disapproving of the fact that Shyamalan seems as intent on creating a concert movie for his daughter to star in than a taut and fun thriller.

The best scenes in the movie show us the offstage events in the concert venue, with the many police trying to cut off all means of escape as a main character tries to figure out the geography of the place and ensure that they're not stuck there alongside everyone else. Shyamalan cannot help himself though, he has to spend time wallowing in his own self-satisfaction, whether that's trying to make his daughter a star, shoehorning his own cameo in there, or casting Hayley Mills in a supporting role because she starred in The Parent Trap (get it? GET IT?), despite the fact that she feels too old for the role, and isn't well-utilised at all.

Hartnett really tries hard though, and he knows exactly what he's doing with his performance. Viewers will love or hate it. I loved it. Donoghue is also pretty good as his daughter, believably content in her own little bubble when allowed to just enjoy the pop concert, but also enjoying moments when she can use the support of her father to remember that facing the everyday life they will be heading back to doesn't have to seem so scary and miserable. Saleka Shyamalan is bad, and gets even worse when her character is no longer just performing on the stage. Jonathan Langdon is good fun in a small role that has him delivering most of the exposition in the first half of the movie, and there are a couple of decent moments for Marnie McPhail and Alison Pill, the latter really getting to shine in a fantastic third act scene that needs strong acting to detract from the fact that it's really just explaining everything leading up to the start of the movie.

There's still something to appreciate about Shyamalan defiantly doing just exactly what he wants to do with his movies, and you cannot deny that he dances to his own tune (for better or worse), but this is a laughable mess that could have been so much better, and the worst parts of it feel like the most obvious Shyamalan touches.

4/10

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Knock At The Cabin (2023)

Taken on a purely superficial level, director M. Night Shyamalan has kept to his usual remit over the past few years. He has delivered thrillers that are centered around an intriguing idea, pleasing or displeasing viewers with his approach to executing the material. Dive under the surface though, which is easy to do when the surface level doesn’t seem anywhere near as emotional or complex as his best work, and you start to see some worrying ideas (almost propaganda) at the heart of them. I am not here to point these aspects out to everyone, but I do think that Shyamalan is now focusing on his subtextual messaging ahead of straightforward storytelling, which makes it necessary to start acknowledging where he seems to be expending more of his energy.

Knock At The Cabin is a tale of four people who arrive at a cabin and request entry. They are headed up by Leonard (Dave Bautista). The people already in the cabin are Eric (Jonathan Groff), Andrew (Ben Aldridge), and their adopted daughter, Wen (Kristen Cui), and they are blissfully unaware that there is an impending apocalypse, apparently. Leonard and his cohorts have had visions. They don’t want to harm people, but they have been asked to knock on this cabin door and ask those inside to make a sacrifice. If they can choose a loved one to sacrifice then they can save the whole world. That’s hard to believe though, obviously, and the film is essentially a lengthy dialogue in which the believers try to convert the non-believers to their cause.

Adapting a book by Paul Tremblay, Shyamalan and co-writers Steve Desmond and Michael Sherman certainly have their work cut out for them, dealing with an implausible scenario that is mostly confined to the one location. They give it an admirable attempt, helped by a cast that deliver on the acting front, but there just isn’t enough mixed in to the plot to distract viewers from the ridiculousness of the central idea. At the risk of moving further away from the source material, this needed to have characters more fleshed out, more debate about the choice to be made, and more ambiguity in the third act.

Shyamalan directs competently, happily keeping viewers in the cabin with the main characters, and I was pleased that he didn’t require his cast to deliver some of their worst performances this time around (as he did with Old), but he doesn’t elevate the middling script. This would arguably work better as a stage play, allowing a focus on the ideas and conversation, but Shyamalan wants a film. He manages to do that, only just, but the end result, if being ranked, sits almost right in the middle of his filmography.

Bautista is quite brilliant in his role, a gentle giant who is as sad about his actions as he is determined to carry them out. He is flanked by Rupert Grint, Nikki Amuka-Bird, and Abby Quinn, who all do good work. It’s a shame that they aren’t given more screentime, but Bautista is the spokesperson for the group, and that’s how he ends up being the most impressive onscreen presence. Groff and Aldridge are also very good, required to spend most of the movie in a state of fear, and young Cui is a very sweet little girl that you hope will be kept safe from any harm, be it interpersonal or global.

I enjoyed this while it was on. The cast make it work, often being good enough to improve dialogue that could have seemed goofy and ridiculous. That’s all there is to it though. It’s an acting showpiece, directed by someone who seems too distracted to make the most of what could have been a much more impressive, and much more tense, killer thriller premise.

6/10

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Old (2021)

Here's the plot of Old. A few different groups of people end up on a lovely beach and discover that time works different there. Although I cannot remember the exact correlation, it's something like half an hour on the beach being the equivalent to one year (this fluctuates though, by my reckoning, so let's not view that measurement as set in stone). While worried by that turn of events, things get even worse for the people on the beach when they realise that they are unable to leave.

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan (although it's based on a graphic novel, 'Sandcastle', by Pierre-Oscar Lévy and Frederik Peeters, Old is one of the most staggeringly awful mainstream movies I have seen in some time. Frustratingly, it has a good idea at the heart of it, and there's an explanation at the end of the movie that at least explains some character motivation, but it is never handled well. Much like the characters onscreen, viewers will feel themselves ageing prematurely as this drags itself from one ridiculous moment to the next.

Here are some of the people featured in the cast though, a selection of names that may tempt you into watching the film. Gael García Bernal, Vicky Krieps, Rufus Sewell, Alex Wolff, Thomasin McKenzie, Abbey Lee, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Ken Leung, Eliza Scanlen, and Aaron Pierre. If you're anything like me then you will appreciate at least a couple of those actors. Don't let their involvement here fool you. Shyamalan has left everyone out to dry, giving them a horribly weak script and directing them to act in a way that is so far removed from their best work that you won't believe that the Vicky Krieps here, for example, is the same woman who did such amazing work in Phantom Thread. Nobody comes out of this well.

Although different from the more overt format of what many used to (and some may still) view as his biggest mis-step, Lady In The Water, Shyamalan has once again tip-toed his way right back to the cause of his previous "fall from grace", a plot that revolves people figuring out they are simply characters in a plot being crafted by someone else. There's one big difference this time around, the author of the narrative being someone who deliberately causes harm, even if it is for the greater good, but it certainly feels like Shyamalan has gone for another swim in the turbulent waters of hubris.

There's nothing else here that feels as if it is worth mentioning. I wasn't a big fan of the score, the special effects were sometimes good and sometimes not so good, and no one aspect can make up for that killer combination of the poor script and poor performances. I even think the cinematography, editing, shot choices, etc. seemed to be hampered by Shyamalan dedicating himself to creating a vision that he never really got a proper grip on.

My advice is to stay as far away from this as possible. And, funnily enough, I don't think time will be kind to it.

2/10

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Glass (2019).

Okay, there's no way for me to discuss my biggest problem with Glass without it seeming slightly spoilery so I would ask you to stop reading this review now if you have yet to see the film. I still dislike spoilers, and I am not one of those people who thinks it is okay to spoil movies for other peopler if it is a movie that I personally disliked (and I did dislike this), but I was rooting for Glass to win me over for about 3/4 of the runtime. Then the finale locked all of the pieces into place, and that's where it lost me. Because after giving us a great, unique, superhero origin tale with Unbreakable, M. Night Shyamalan decided to make Split a surprise supervillain origin tale connected to that movie. It wasn't as good as Unbreakable but the cast helped to make it work and the ending had a lot of people (including myself) quite excited. So you have one origin story, another origin story, and then M. Night Shyamalan squanders the opportunity to make something truly memorable by cheekily turning this third entry in what is now a trilogy into . . . a third origin story. Yep, that's really what this is. And that may please Shyamalan, but it's less likely to please those who expected something more.

Here's the basic story. David Dunn (Bruce Willis) now patrols the streets and tries to seek out, and stop, criminals. He is helped by his son, Joseph (Spencer Treat Clark returning to the role that last saw him acting onscreen as a child), and all is going well until he bumps into the dangerous multiple personalities of the character, Kevin/Dennis/Hedwig/etc, played by James McAvoy (let's just call him Kevin from now on). Caught in the middle of a fight, David and Kevin are locked up in a mental health institution, where another notable patient is Elijah Price (AKA Mr Glass, Samuel L. Jackson). Dr. Ellie Staple (Sarah Paulson) wants to convince them that the ideas they have in their heads, the notions that they have superpowers, are merely delusions, potentially dangerous ones. The doctor may soon find herself out of her depth.

Shyamalan still has talent. That's what perhaps remains the most frustrating thing about him, the biggest obstacle to his success is himself. Of course, I am saying this without knowing the general majority opinion on this movie (which, for all I know, could be loved by many people). But his good points are as obvious as his failings. The guy does well with plotting, the look and feel of his films, and I'd argue that he is often also very good at being able to get the pacing just right. Shyamalan rarely makes films that hurtle from start to finish, but he shoots the quieter, slower, moments so well that they are still engrossing in between any more exciting sequences. He also tends to get great work from composers, and the score here by West Dylan Thordson is no exception.

On the flipside, he often creates scripts that seem designed to showcase how good he is with his words and ideas (as good as he views himself, anyway), and he often builds his movies around one major idea or twist. That's all well and good when everything works, as happened with his solid run of four movies spread out around the turn of this century, but not so good otherwise. He's a gambler who continues to bet big with the hope that the last card turned over will be the one to give him the unbeatable hand. That card isn't always drawn, leaving him with a large investment on the table and nothing good enough to lay down at the end.

The cast all do well here, with McAvoy arguably getting to play around even more than he did in Split (and he's the best person onscreen). Willis at least looks present for a number of his scenes, which is more than can be said for many of his other performances in recent years, and Jackson clearly loves the chance to reprise the role of Price. Paulson is fine as the doctor, Anya Taylor-Joy (who was so good in Split) continues to prove herself as an intriguing and excellent screen presence, and it's nice to see Clark as the boy still trying to look after his "superdad".

Breaking everything down to their basic elements, Glass is not a bad film. There are a number of good moments throughout, the script is serviceable, it often looks great, and a couple of the leads are giving it their all. It just fails to come together by the end, and it fails in such a way that genuinely sours the films that came before it, which surely couldn't have been Shyamalan's intention. That failure is enough to drag it down by some margin, and I almost considered going even lower with my final rating.

5/10

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Lady In The Water (2006)

Lady In The Water is, in so many ways, a film that is hard to take in while watching. It's so ridiculous, so self-indulgent and so messy that it's mesmerising in that way that bad cinema can be. The easy joy of mocking the film is tinged with a slight sadness that some aspects (some of the cast, the production design) are good. The biggest problem with the film is writer-director-star M. Night Shyamalan, who decided to crash and burn in a display of arrogance that should never have been indulged.

Bryce Dallas Howard plays the titular character, named Story, encountered one evening by an apartment building superintendent, Cleveland Heep, played by Paul Giamatti. She is in danger and needs to get home, but she also has something very important to tell at least one of the tenants living in the building. One man in particular, played by M. Night Shyamalan, may be the most important person among them. He may be the man destined to write a story that will change the world.

Yes, that's correct. M. Night Shyamalan wrote and directed a movie in which someone is destined to write one of the most important works of the 21st century, and decided that he would be the best person to put in that role. Never mind the fact that he has a supporting cast that includes Bob Balaban, Jared Harris, Jeffrey Wright, Freddy Rodriguez and other contenders. It's all down to him. I didn't mention the actresses - Cindy Cheung, Sarita Choudhury, Mary Beth Hurt, etc. - because, sadly, they are all stuck in roles that are either purely expositional or just support for the men all jostling for position as the best person to help Story. At least, that's how it seemed to me.

Created as a modern fairytale, the movie actually works, almost, when fully committing to that approach. There are fantastical creatures (both good and bad), there is an opening narration, there are some nice, magical touches here and there. Unfortunately, everything else is designed to make the whole thing seem up to date and cool, which has the exact opposite effect.

The cast, for the most part, do well with what they're given. The weakest person onscreen is, you guessed it, M. Night Shyamalan. He'd already proven why he developed a career behind the camera as opposed to in front of it with cameo roles in his earlier movies, but he suddenly believes that he's a worthwhile addition to a pretty solid ensemble cast. No. No, he isn't.

I could say more about the movie. There are more small things worth praising and more minor criticisms that could be written here, but the shadow of Shyamalan's ego blocks out everything else. Giving more time over to the movie almost feels like giving too much attention to a toddler having a major shit fit in the middle of a supermarket. The movie came out, it was suitably chastised and now we should all just move along and stop staring.

4/10

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