Lady in the Water
 

Anybody see this yet? I'm not sure if I want to see this before I read a bunch of reviews because I was there to see The Village and that was a waste.

Rotten Tomatoes says it's only 24% fresh..

with quotes like ""For a movie constantly explaining itself, M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water doesn't make a drop of sense."

and

"It's an ambitious mess at best, and the invented mythology is delivered to the viewer with the subtlety of a sledgehammer."

and even those regarding it as fresh are backhanded in their compliments

"Maybe the theme is that you should try to score some of that stuff Shyamalan must be smoking."

None of Shamalama's movies have really been GOOD, but they're more interesting to watch than 99% of the garbage that gets released.

I really liked 6th Sense and Signs but The Village was just "WTF!"

Hit movies often fall to the expectation trap. The movies are never about what people think they are going to be about so they come away disappointed. The storytelling is generally pretty good if there aren't a lot of exectations getting in the way.

I thought the Village was pretty darned good. I also really liked Unbreakable. Signs was decent, except for the ending. Sixth Sense would have been good, but I figured out the "secret" right away, so that kind of made it suck.

Lady in the Water looks like crap.

I've liked everyone of his so far, though I've gone in without any notion of what to expect - didn't even know the "secret" in Sixth Sense despite seeing it on video. I think Unbreakable is probably the weakest of the lot, but I still enjoyed it.

All of that said, I'm not hearing great things about Lady in the Water, and I'll probably wait for video for it.

I really liked 6th Sense and the Villiage but Signs just seemed like generic sci-fi.

I heard M. on NPR yesterday and he was explaining how they showed this movie to three groups of "Joe Schmoes" (yes, that's how M. refers to people seeing his movies) and how they raved about it. He says that it reminds him "ET," because it creates that much of an emotional connection and it's a "religious experience." The man's lack of humility is exceeded only by his completely toolness.

His movies are all gimmicks. If you don't see through the gimmick, there's a payoff. If you do see through the gimmick, then you've justed wasted two hours of your life. Yet this guy acts like every movie he made is "Spartacus." The whole Sci-Fi channel hoax incident really further punctuates why a media whore this guy is.

What happened?

I knew the "tricks" in 6th Sense (*Spoiler* when the main dude's name is Crow and they show him being shot in the first scene, that a strong allusion to someone living in the realm of the living and dead *End Spoiler*) and The Village (*Spoiler* The vague, yet modern descriptions by the characters of their experiences with crime indicated they weren't era appropriate to me *End Spoiler*) very early in each movie, but enjoyed both anyway. I also figured out where Unbreakable was going halfway through, but thought it was pretty good (although the ending was ridiculously rushed). Signs was alright too. None of the movies were that groundbreaking or exciting, but they had interesting narratives, a lot of good and bad symbolism, and some interesting ideas. So, I'm going to watch Lady in the Water on Sunday, but I'm not expecting "great" things because I've never thought any of his movies are great - only good.

Joe Schmoe is a fairly normal description for an average 'civilian'...or someone outside of whatever business you are talking about. He might think a little much of his movies, but that seems normal for Hollywood.


If you get hung up in the gimmick, you are missing the point of the movie. In fact, I think the movies are better on the second viewing since you aren't spending so much time looking for the surprise. People expect a great surprise and they spend the whole movie looking for it. By doing this, they miss a good story.

My advice is to go into one of his movies thinking that you will have no idea what to expect, and just sit back and enjoy. The surprises tend to be ancillary to the main story.

I think this is a good way to go. Sit back and expect a good story and you probably won't be disappointed. Go in looking for great or surprising and you probably will be disappointed.

Despite the reviews, I will see it. I've had a pretty big difference of opinion with people over some M. Knight stuff before. In my opinion he hasn't made a "bad" movie yet. Are there some faults in his movies? God yes, but overall I've enjoyed them all. He's got to give me a total bomb before I take a "wait and see" approach.


On an unrelated note, I saw Monster House this week and could definitely recommend that. One parents could definitely get some laughs out of while taking the kids.

Good at setting the atmosphere, bad at telling the story

I'd like to echo BrianD -- I thought The Village was a very good story, even before the gimmick. Truth is, even though I didn't exactly see the gimmick coming, I had remarked to my wife about 60 minutes in that some of the elders weren't staying in character very well. Made sense later, of course. But anyway, Bruce Willis in the 1st two movies, then Joaqqkinnq (there, I think I spelled that right) Phoenix in Village played their roles with heart wrenching honesty.

Not a fan of Signs, though...

Liked Sixth Sense. Liked Unbreakable. Liked the Village. Thought they were all very good movies. Signs was difficult to get through.

Loved Sixth Sense and Signs. Unbreakable was okay. The Village was one of the worst movies I have ever seen.

I'll wait to read some more reviews. He went from "must see" to "wait and see" with the Village.

Since everyone else is giving their feelings on all of his movies, here's my two cents. I loved Signs and Unbreakable. I saw Sixth Sense after finding out the secret, so that sort of spoiled it for me, but I still thought it was a pretty good movie. I can't put my finger on the exact problem, but I was disappointed in The Village. I'm going to try to get out and see Lady in the Water.

I've only seen Unbreakable and Signs. I think Unbreakable is my absolute favorite movie I've ever seen. I didn't make it out of the first 30 minutes of Signs.

IIRC, cthomer is a notoriously tough movie critic. And I generally like M. Night movies. So if he isn't scared away, I probably won't be. Torn, though, on whether I want to see it or Monster House or Clerks II first.

Has Shayamalan ever explained ''the Village?'' I thought it was his criticism on preserving the innocence of the sheltered children by parents, and control...but I could be wrong.

I thought Signs was just a complete waste of talent.

Why would he need to? I thought "the village" idea was your standard xenophobe, isolationsist type concept.

Granted, not all of us have the resources to create our own State Park, but hasn't every city dweller thought of throwing in the towel and moving out of the city and into the country, to get away from all the crime and corruption at least once in their lives?

2D, 3D, and/or Imax?

I am Trying to find out how much of this film is in 3d/ Imax.

I think we all know what "Joe Schmoe" is, but it's not a flattering term and it's certainly not what I'd call my customers if I want them to shell out $8 to see my movie. He takes condescenion to a whole new level.
I'll be honest that I don't get this at all. If you take out the gimmick of The Sixth Sense, you get a pretty much run of the mill story about a someone trying to redeem themselves by helping someone with the same problem of someone they failed. It's a standard script -- we've seen that show before.

To each his own. I don't think there is anything wrong with seeing his movies. But if you're watching his movies for the story and not the gimmicks, I think you'd enjoy watching the same story told in a much better way -- just watch any old episode of The Twilight Zone.

Sci-Fi did a "documentary" on him just before one of his movies came out -- I think it was The Village. In an "interview," he claimed as a kid he'd been dead 30 minutes in accident and since then he had something akin to ESP -- stop me if you've heard this plot somewhere. Well, in the midst of the "documentary" M. and the film crew having a falling out and it starts to turn into an expose.

The catch is that the whole thing was a ruse. It was a fake documentary created by M. to promote the new movie. They went so far as to issue fake press releases for the documentary, and even gave interviews to the AP and other media outlets where they lied about the documentary and made up stories claiming they were true.

After Sci-Fi and NBC got called on the scam, they came clean. M. then claimed that while the documentary was his idea, he had nothing to do with the marketing and never authorized any of it, so he shouldn't be blamed for it. So, he wanted everyone to believe that make a fake documentary promoting his movie was his idea, but he had nothing to do with promoting the fake documentary promoting his movie. OK....

Meh.

So he's a marketing guru, as well as being a filmmaker. Good for him. It's not like he hurt anyone.

I'll continue to judge him on his movies.

He might as well call movie goers "marks".

I thought the movie was great - i enjoy all his other movies as well.

Review on Mitch Albom radio..."If after 6th Sense his next movie was 5th Sense, the next 4th Sense, this one makes no sense..."

Went and saw this soon after getting home. Loved the movie. Enjoyed the story, the way it was told, the acting, and the humor thrown in.

And for all the wanna-be critics, M. Knight pretty much has a message for movie critics in the movie which I found funny.

This is probably one of my favorites of his movies, up there with Signs.

I was ready to see it until you said "Signs".

I hated that movie. Specifically the copout ending.

Well, I have a liking of movies with aliens in it, and end of the world type plots, so part of my like comes from that. Don't discount my opinion based on me liking Signs though, this is nothing like it.

No twists in this either, I knew that going in but for those expecting one forget it. They keep you guessing a little on some things, but it's not too hard to figure out and it's not real important if you guess these things or not.

Oh, and BTW, my 6.5 year old daughter enjoyed the movie also. One part gave her a bit of a scare but it wasn't a big deal, she just got surprised. M. Knight said on Stern this week it's probably good for 8 and older so I figured my kid could handle whatever there was.

I saw it in 2D. It's a good movie. They did a good job picking good voice talent rather than simply putting some "name" actors in there to do the voices.

Agreed, saw this (Monster House) after Lady In the Water. It was a decent movie, I think I would have liked it better except it was my second movie in a row and I started getting sick of the theater. That and I started getting tired, I have been up since last night.

It came in third on friday. looks like somebody dropped a bomb

Not sure I would call it a bomb....

From some site linked from Drudge.

Pirates was #1 again though it looks.

Lady in the Water is projected to take in about 19 million based off of today, according to the article 'rival studios' predicted it would be in the high 20's.

Super Ex-Girlfriend took in 2.7 million, that is more like a bomb.

Also, M. Knight's movies do VERY well outside the U.S. (according to him, I haven't seen the numbers except what he said the other day on the radio), so I guess in the end it probably won't be a bomb because of that even if it doesn't do well here.

I guess I don't see it as an unflattering term. It is an average person that isn't in the business. Is it really that much worse that John Doe, or Joe Moviegoer?



The Sixth Sense was built a little more on the suspense angle, but the rest of his movies were not. People started waiting for the twist and then got upset when it wasn't there. I remember being floored by the twist in the Sixth Sense, but I liked the movie even more the second time. Same with the other movies. The general themes are not new (what is new in Hollywood these days?), but the way the stories are told is new. They are being told in a different way and they are very internally consistant.


The Sixth Sense is really the only movie with a twist. There tend to be some unexpected parts of his other movies, but they really only serve to put his stories in a different context. They aren't really a major plot point, nor do they try to be.

By this I am assuming you mean the way the aliens were dealt with. Since this wasn't really an alien movie (just a movie that contained aliens), it didn't really seem so bad. The aliens were just a vehicle for a story about a man losing his faith and trying to come to terms with that, so the alien resolution didn't seem that big a deal to me.

LOL,and King Kong was the story of a struggling actress having to make a Moral decision

Just got back from seeing Lady In The Water. I didn't like it. I don't hate it, but I definitely didn't feel good about it.

I found a lot of photography bizzare in the choice of angles or focus in a number of scenes, and felt overall that it simply didn't work. There is something "off" about the entire thing and I'm not exactly sure what it is yet. I guess I didn't really like a couple of main characters and overall found basically every character to be much too quick to accept the premise of what was going on around them. Also, it's a pretty self-indulgent movie on a number of levels. I'll probably flesh out my thoughts in spoiler-laden review later.

Seriously, people who thought Signs was an alien movie and was then disappointed because it wasn't a particularly good alien movie really missed the point.

**** MANY SPOILERS BELOW ****



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Getting down to my issues with the movie:

1. Everyone seems ready to believe the entire story at face value. I don't think we once see a character question the validity of the whole tale.

2. M. Knight playing the character who will write a book that will evnetually inspire great change in this country and the world? Gee, could your ego be any bigger pal? Awful decision on his part, because this is going to be an easy bullseye for critics.

3. Speaking of critics, let's make the film critic charater easy to dislike and give him a gruesome death. Then even have another character call him out for being arrogant enough to presume he knew the intentions of others (i guess the analogy would be "knowing what the writer's intent was"). Another easy bullseye for critics, and the sort of meta-thinking that totally takes you out of the movie-going experience.

4. Bryce Dallas Howard - All she did was simply stare blankly as if in shock at all times. I blame the director, not her.

5. The Freddy Rodriguez character (working out 1 side of his body). Stupid, over-the-top comedy. It doesn't fit too well when most the rest of the tone is ultra-serious.

6. The Young-Soon Choi character. Over the top, simply put. Too much of a characature to be taken very seriously. I understand she wasn't necessarily meant to be, but I found her grating and distracting. Again, the blend of comedy and drama was incredibly disjointed.

7. The animals/CGI didn't really look too good. The first time we see the dog-thing attack (smashing through the window on the lower half of the door) the whole scene just seems off, as if they'd only inserted it later or something.

8. The ending... I know I'm not the only one who kind of expected a little more there. In fact that pretty much sums up my feeling on the movie. You expected that it's all heading towards something and it .... .just doesn't.

1. Yes, I thought that too. Kind of waited for someone to reject it and give them problems, but they never did. That may have been my only big problem with the movie but it didn't kill it for me.

2. I have no problem with M. Knight playing he character he did. I thought he acted well, and him finding out his future (the more in depth part when he asks how his book becomes famous) was actually a touching part.

3. I liked the critic part, and thought a lot of writers/directors would have loved to do he same thing but are probably to chicken shit to do it.

4. I thought she was supposed to be half in shock, she was totally out of her known world, with a creature after her that didn't make a whole lot of sense to her at first.

5. Yes, the one sided body builder was odd, and a little over the top. Still, I took it with a grain of salt and found it a little humorous.

6. Young-Soon was funny, her and her mother were great, and made for some laughable moments during the movie for my wife and I.

7. I didn't focus on the CGI of the animal enough to see the problem you did I guess. I thought it was decent but I won't argue there could have been problems with it. Not sure how much that stuff costs, but I know the movie's budget was 85 million I think. Maybe that played a part in it not being top notch.

8. I enjoyed the ending. Not sure what else you wanted, but we disagree other places so doing it here is no big deal either. :)

The thing that bothers me the most about these movies is that they are marketed one way and the movie turns out to be something totally different. I think that kills the movie in the eyes of a lot of people.

I liked the movie. I have liked all of his movies thus far. So that may skew things a little. A movie doesn't need to be perfect to be good. In general, he is at his best at weaving a story of something fantastic mixed in with the mundane existance that the rest of us are used to, and having it feel like the idea of it is a distinct possibility.

Yet I believe it will still be viewed more favorably than Miami Vice.

michael mann is good. i expect to like vice in spite of 100% too much colin farrell

I'm a big M.Night fan. Not saying he's Oscar-worthy, or anything, but I have enjoyed all his movies (Signs the most, Village the least, but thought Sixth Sense was the "best").

I went into Lady not expecting much because of the bad reviews. With that attitude, I found this different from all the others. This seemed almost a comedy, it was so tongue-in-cheek, over-the-top. I laughed at this movie. M.Night couldn't have really been taking this seriously. This is NOT a horror movie, or even suspense. It's a quippy little movie about apartment building losers set in a mystical/fantasy story. The movie critic was a riot. The jump scenes in this movie were better than perhaps any save Sixth Sense. People in the theater were screaming like little girls--not because it was truly "scary", but because the jump scenes were a great combination of expected/unexpected.

I recommend it in theaters only because of the "boo" factor, and listening to the girls scream.

That said, the story has two major groaners in it. Previous posters were right that the people of the apartment building are just not questioning enough. The boy's role is ridiculous. But if you understand that every character in the movie is a neurotic, socially challenged halfwit...the movie's pretty funny. I give it a 6 out of 10.