For anyone who's familiar with Shy's track record, you'd know he made two incredible films early on in his career (Unbreakable and The Sixth Sense), and from there on he went downhill completely with movies like Signs and The Last Airbender (which according to fans of the series doesn't actually exist, kind of like how there's only three Indiana Jones movies...) I don't think it was unreasonable of me to expect the movie to be uninpressive cheap fun. I gotta say though, M. Night Shyamalan might be making a comeback. Split was surprisingly engaging and thrilling.
I think the problem with his movies up until now, other than the fact that they became increasingly ridiculous, is that you knew there was going to be a plot twist at the end of the film, which made it possible to predict what it would be since you know there'll be one coming.
In true Shyamalan fashion, Split obviously has a plot twist, and I was wracking my brain trying to figure out what would happen at the end of the movie that changes everything about it, but the story kept going in a direction away from any possible twists... I actually swore out loud in the cinema when it happened, along with other people in the audience. ("Oh sh*********t..."). Of course I'm not going to give anything specific away since this film has only recently come out (at least that's the case in my country), but I will say this: a lot of people are not going to get it. It has nothing to do with intelligence or how well you've been paying attention, so this isn't me being pretentious about it, just being very honest. Shyamalan has made an interesting choice, and that's all I'm going to say about it.
To give some info about the movie itself, if you haven't caught the trailer, Split covers the topic of Dissosiative Identity Disorder, the actual name for what people tend to call split/multiple personality disorder. DID is a very debated topic in it's field since a lot of people believe it isn't a real disorder and that the people that "suffer" from it are deluded or making it up while actually suffering from a different mental illness. This is reflected in the film, and I always appreciate it when you can see that the writers did their research. I won't call this a scientifically accurate film, it takes it's liberties, but I don't think it's an insult to anyone with DID, either.
James McAvoy plays the character with DID and his acting is phenomenal. His different personalites all feel like different actors inhabiting his body, and when he switches on camera, sheesh, it's creepy. I'm not sure he'll be nominated for an Oscar due to the nature of the film (it's not exactly the kind of movie the academy likes to praise), but I think it's still definitely worth the watch for the acting alone.
Before I make it sound like the best movie ever though, I wouldn't say it's a masterpiece. The Sixth Sense is still, in my opinion, Shyamalan's best movie. People might not be happy with the plot twist, parts of the movie are predictable, and at times too ridiculous. The genre is a little confusing, it starts off in one direction and then goes a different way, but that might not be a bad thing. Rosemary's Baby pulled it off and that's considered a classic horror/drama nowadays.
I'm glad to see that it boasts a Certified Fresh score of 79% on RT currently, and IMDb users have rated it a 7.6 so far, so the general consensus between both critics and the general audience is that it's a good film.
