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The Lady In the Water Review

The Lady In The Water Review

Starring: Paul Giamatti, Bryce Dallas Howard, M. Night Syamalan

Director: M. Night Shyamalan

Year: 2006

I never liked M. Night Shyamalan movies. Any person who can turn the Last Airbender into what it was can’t exactly be that genius. I mean, I don’t hate the guy. As a director, he has potential, and so his work has potential, but in the end it just comes across as M. Night Shyamalan bullshit. He tries, and I feel bad for him a little, because I feel like some of his movies he’s putting his lives work in there, and he just can’t find an audience. But he can’t find an audience because of how awful they are! Whether it’s terrible execution, bad story telling, or something along those lines, they just fail. I reviewed signs, but that had great potential to suck. Lady In the Water on the other hand, had potential to be good. Sort of. A stuttering handyman (that’s pretty much his entire character) finds a woman in his pool, wakes up with her in his house, and slowly our very strange story comes together. The words overly complex just scream out. And this isn’t one of those it’s so bad it’s good, it tries, and it’s annoying. The girl and Paul Giamatti have some of the worst conversations ever. They speak to each other in the others face, like they’re about to make out at any moment, they have terrible dialogue, and I just want to walk away from the scenes. And I’m not sure which genre this movie is trying to be. It tries to be scary, tries to fantasy (maybe the movies main flaw), it tires to be like a bed time story, and just collapses on itself. Fantasy in real world doesn’t make sense. Maybe a little, one that keeps the audience wondering, that would be a sick ass bedtime story. But when there are Madam Narfs in your movie, then your not going to be taken seriously. And there’s so much going on, it just becomes mind numbing after awhile. And it’s not good story, it’s just information. I don’t care about his world you keep referencing, and if you keep giving me names and definitions from it without showing much, than don’t include it. If this world was shown an explored better, I could have seen a cool little short television show, or anime, or whatever. (I don’t actually want that, but you get my point) But in the movie world that didn’t show much, I couldn’t picture this world. If somebody told me they liked this movie, I could see it. But for me, ten minutes in and I didn’t like this movie. And the girl, she didn’t even need to talk. At one point she needs to use this little sign language system, and I’d prefer that compared to the terrible dialogue. And that’s probably up there with some of the main problems of the movie. The script and some characters. There are so many off characters and weird moments, it just becomes overload next to the rest of the already overly complex story. Especially when you try to give dramatic moments to characters who have been in like two thirty second scenes. And the cast is huge, and not one of them is likable! And they have to try and explain this weird world with Narfs, and giant eagles, and all sorts info that goes in and out, to at least fifteen other people. And not one of them was like, "What the fuck is going on?” Why? I would have related with them! The acting, that’s workable. Bryce Dallas Howard whose been in amazing movies like Twilight and Spider-man 3 plays the lady in the water, and all kidding aside, she’s not that bad, the character did feel real, it’s just that her dialogue was too awful. Same with Paul Giamatti, I’ve seen him act wonderfully, but there’s no way to work with what he has. He shouldn’t be in this movie, that’s why I’m trying to say. And while we’re talking about the acting, let’s talk about how M. Night Shymalan is in the movie himself. Yes, he’s acting. I mean, he’s not terrible, but it’s who he is that makes me feel bad for him. He plays a writer, who is trying to make a masterpiece, may die for it, but somebody will like his masterpiece and go on to do great things. (This totally fits in with the rest of the movie) I mean, that makes me feel really bad for him. I feel like he’s trying, and he has potential, just quite making movies like this! Best thing about the movie… the camera angels? That that count, cause I thought whoever was in charge of camera did really good. Camera angles usually when good kind of just gives you the feeling your watching something epic, but when it’s bad it turns into one of those movies that are just bad, not so bad they’re good. If Shyamalan had anything to do with that, than good, he did something right. Now did I hate all the movie? No, the one guy who was like "Originality is dead,” and knew storytelling up and down I actually thought was awesome. The scene he died was by far the best scene in the movie for me. Also his response to the whole rain thing actually made me laugh. I think Shyamalan hated that guy, and that’s why he killed him off like that, but it’s funny he’s possibly the best part of the movie. As far as Shyamalan goes, dude, just don’t write the movie. I’m sorry, I know your trying, but this is stretching to far. The rest of the movie is like what I’ve mentioned, too much, too complicated, too boring, too uninteresting, too ridiculous, too fast, and at time just absurd. I feel a little sad giving something that had potential the badge of shit award, but this is just one bedtime story everyone could have lived without.

The Lady In The Water gets a 1/5

Spoilers: Okay, not a lot of spoilers here. I did spoil some stuff in the review, but I honestly don’t care. And neither should the majority of people watching this movie. I mean, it had a couple moments where I stopped and gave dues, but it just isn’t that good. Like the scene with eagle at the end, if that moment happened in actually really done fantasy meets strange obscure characters, it could be one of those really charming moments, but with tints of epic. But no. Shyamalan had to Shyamalan it. And one last thing, the main character, what was his motive? That the girl he hardly knew as his friend? When did they bond? He was suppose to be nervous and socially awkward, he never would have wanted to enter the land Narfs and tree monkeys, or whatever those were.