'Split' doesn't deviate from director-writer M. Night Shyamalan's standard fare
Ever since he made 鈥淭he Sixth Sense,鈥� his one good movie and far and聽away his biggest hit, writer-director M. Night Shyamalan has been聽attempting to rekindle the fire. 鈥淪plit,鈥� his latest foray into heebie-jeebie聽hokum, has at least some novelty going for it. James McAvoy plays a character with dissociative identity disorder (DID), which, in聽movie terms, means we get to watch him play out multiple personalities ranging from flamboyant fashion designer to frightened 9-year- old.聽All in all, this guy has 23 separate personas, with a dreaded 24th on the聽horizon. About eight or so personas are actually on display, and that鈥檚聽plenty. I worried Shyamalan might go for the full 24 鈥� all of聽which, for all I know, may end up as extras on an extended-play DVD聽director鈥檚 cut.
Aside from McAvoy鈥檚 tour de force, which eventually and聽unintentionally devolves into a tour de farce, 鈥淪plit鈥� is an unseemly聽chamber of horrors. The DID character has kidnapped a trio of nubile聽teenage girls and trapped them in a storagelike underground facility in聽order to carry out something unspecified and nefarious. The most聽industrious of the trio, played by Anya Taylor-Joy, spends much of the聽movie expanding her big brown eyes聽in fear. The guy鈥檚 psychiatrist,聽played by Betty Buckley, is on speaking terms with all 23 personas and聽thinks that DID represents some kind of supernatural evolution of the聽human species. Guess where she ends up?
Shyamalan is a one-trick pony who needs to find a new rodeo.聽Grade: C- (Rated聽PG-13 for disturbing thematic content and behavior, violence and some language.)
