Split
First the good.
James McAvoy does a fairly amazing job. He plays a mentally disturbed man who has 20-something personalities. Only about five of those were ever fully realized for the audience, but McAvoy managed to inhabit each completely differently. You could usually tell just by the facial expression whether he was Hedwig, Barry, Patricia or Dennis.
You've seen the trailers. One of the personalities kidnaps three teenage girls and then the others interact with them as they try to figure out how to escape.
The girls are pretty standard horror movie fare, completely forgettable. The girl who was in The Witch is a little better, but she's still not McAvoy's equal -- and this movie needed that balance.
Now the bad.
The mom from Eight is Enough (and the prison therapist from Oz) plays a stereotypically unaware psychiatrist with some lunatic theory about people with DID (disassociative identity disorder?). Her clumsy handling of McAvoy's character(s) is weak.
M. Night Shamalemaladabingbong wrote and directed and he left a lot -- a LOT -- of potentially fantastic story possibilities unturned. The girls were given too little to do. He kept McAvoy reined in more than he should have, there needed to be a much harder edge to some of the characters.
The movie dragged and dragged, never truly delivering any suspense or sense of terror. Too much was left unexplained.
There was a backstory on the main chick that kept breaking up the drudge in some flashbacks, but it was not really relevant and could have been done so much better. In fact, there was in my mind a major opportunity for that backstory to pay off in a decidedly shocking manner and yet he just left the string flapping in the breeze. Just didn't deliver.
There was also a "big reveal" at the very end, but for those of us who aren't versed in M. Night Shaboolamamadingdong's catalog, it really was pointless and, in fact, added a sense of complete confusion. As the black fellow behind me observed after the reveal "I think that was the same dude, but growed up some or maybe it was the cat what played in that Wolverines movie.."
For some I'm sure it was cool. For most of the people in the (theater full to the point that management held the movie and asked people move into empty seats so they could get the crowd in the lobby settled in) audience it appeared to be primarily a "what was that" moment. Therefore? F.A.I.L.
The movie wasn't bad and McAvoy was worth watching, but it was lacking in so many areas I just can't recommend it except when it comes out on some streaming service.
3588 Replies
800950 Views