Split

M. Night Shyamalan has had an interesting history with Hollywood. He was establish by Hollywood as the next big director with his creative success of The Sixth Sense. Since that point, however, his films fell into a spiral of declining quality for a period of time. That Shyamalan slump started with Signs and continued until his last bad film being After Earth. Most of them carries a weak twist, terrible dialog, well respected actors being wasted (such as Will Smith, Mark Walhberg, Paul Giamatti, and Dev Patel), and bland characters with unusual quirks. He became such a laughing stock that two of his movies can be seen as so bad it's good kind of movies (The Happening and Lady in the Water). Even the reviews I've seen on YouTube make fun of how terrible they are. Then in 2015 Shyamalan returned with a horror comedy, The Visit (which my roommates dragged me to and I surprisingly enjoyed). This was seen as a comeback for him after so many failures. The trailer to his newest movie, Split, looked like an interesting psychological horror and the critics wouldn't stop praising it as Shyamalans greatest comeback. I went in ready to see what the praise was all about and I left the theater still waiting for a good movie from this director.

Plot: The premise involves three girls being kidnapped by a man with dissociative identity disorder, having 23 different personalities. The victims try to escape their ordeal before he brings out the darkest of the 23 to kill them. This kind of story has been done before on an episode on Criminal Minds and isn't anything new. The plot goes about as predictable as you can imagine and not in a good way, especially in the second half. The unusual dialog and tropes of Shyamalan are present here, including a cameo from him. There are separate pieces of the story going on such as the backstory of one of the girls and the perpetrator visiting his psychiatrist appointments that aren't really that interesting and try to build up the stakes of the main character. As for the twist in the Split, if you have seen one of his earlier movies after The Sixth Sense, its effectiveness is going to depend on your enjoyment of this movie (personally it's not a good twist nor a good idea for M Night Shyamalan to pursue). Overall Splits plot gets muddled up in repetitive action, predictable storytelling, separate stories, typical Shyamalan unusual tropes, and a twist that depends on your enjoyment of the movie.

Characters: The only characters to focus on are Kevin (James McAvoy) and Casey (Anya Taylor-Joy). Kevin is afflicted with dissociative identity disorder, having 23 personalities, and kidnaps the three girls. James gives a great performance in this challenging role and showcases a few of the personalities, which does its best to distract from the bad things in Split. Casey is an outcast and one of the three girls who are kidnapped by one of Kevin's personalities. She's given one of the aforementioned separate stories with pieces of her childhood shown. Anya does a fine job with the material given to this role, no matter how dumb or hokey the dialog gets such as telling one of the girls to pee on herself when the latter being taken into another room by one of Kevin's personalities. An honorable mention goes to the Betty Buckleys fine performance as Kevin's psychiatrist. Dishonorable mentions go to Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula for their bland performances as Claire and Marcia, the two other girls kidnapped alongside Casey. Overall the driving force of the character performances in Split is James McAvoy as he gives it his all in comparison to the rest of the cast.

Overall Consensus: Split can only go so far on James McAvoys great performance as it slugs through predictable repetitive Shyamalan storytelling, bland dialog, and bad performances from the supporting cast. ⭑1/2

Reasons to watch it: You like James McAvoy and/or M Night Shyamalan. You like the psychological horror genre regardless of the quality of the movie. You like M Night Shyamalan movies no matter how good or bad they are. You are interested in judging a Shyamalan flick for yourself since some of them have a reputation for dividing audiences and critics. You want to see what the twist is. You want to use this movie as an excuse to appreciate better made psychological horror movies even more. You like movies that has a slow pace. You don't mind the unusual Shyamalan tropes he has used before.

Reasons to avoid it: You don't like M Night Shyamalan and/or any of the aforementioned actors.You want to see a psychological horror that isn't predictable and keeps you guessing. You want to watch a movie that doesn't rely on one great performance over the quality of the overall story and cast of characters to succeed. You don't like psychological horror. You don't want to see a movie with a predictable story. You are annoyed by the unusual Shyamalan tropes he uses in his films. You are tired of twists being used in Shyamalan movies. You don't like movies that have a slow pace.