Because James McAvoy, duh.

Never mind that it’s a M. Night Shyamalan movie – which are always a fifty-fifity thing – it has James frakkin’ McAvoy in it and he plays a psycho. What else would you need to get you to watch a movie?

Here’s my roundup of M. Night Shyamalan’s (After Earth (2013)) Split (2016).

Please note that there may be spoilers.  Read at your own risk.

THE STORY:

After attending a classmate’s birthday party where she was invited only out of politeness, Casey Cooke (Anya Taylor-Joy – Morgan (2016)), resident outcast of her high school, gets kidnapped by a man with OCD (James McAvoy – X-Men: Days of Future Past (2014)). The man hijacks the car of her classmate Claire Benoit’s (Haley Lu Richardson – The Edge of Seventeen (2016)) dad – who kindly offered her a ride home – and Casey wakes up next to Claire and her other classmate Marcia (Jessica Sula – Skins) in a basement with no windows. Later on they all learn that they have been kidnapped by a man with multiple personalities – a man named Dennis who has OCD, a nine-year-old named Hedwig, a strict nun named Patricia, among others – and that they are being prepared for a being called the Beast. Together, they must find a way to escape their deranged captor who seems bent on making a sacrifice out of them.

THE GOOD:

1. James McAvoy. Very few actors can pull of a role like this with such conviction. I read that the role was originally supposed to be for Joaquin Phoenix and while he is perfectly capable, I feel like Phoenix would have played it too creepily. As it is, McAvoy lent a hint of vulnerability to his Kevin Wendell Crumb that made me feel sympathetic to his personalities’ causes.
2. Anya Taylor-Joy was more than capable of holding up her own though. As heroines go, she’s pretty believable, despite the scrawny frame. Plus, she’s super pretty – although she kinda looks too much like Kendall Jenner so that might turn a few people off. Or on, depending on how they feel about seeing Kendall Jenner being terrorized.

   

3. The way the story unfolded was particularly good to me because I’m sure it’s more difficult than it looks to sneak in the fact that the movie takes place in a world where the supernatural naturally occurs. When Shyamalan does it wrong, he really does it wrong but during times like these, his talent peeks through. He eases the supernatural bit so smoothly that when supernatural shit actually does start to happen, you don’t question it all.
4. It’s a nice theory, that multiple personalities could be the way to unlocking the human brain’s full potential. I mean, the science backs it up – people with multiple personalities have shown to change their bodies’ chemistry to fit the personality in charge. It feels well-researched (although with Shyamalan, you never really know) so the “facts” you’re presented with seem solidly logical.
5. Bruce Willis! I haven’t seen Unbreakable yet, but now I feel like I have to. I wonder if they’ll make a third one. How’s that going to work though?
6. It’s a very rare example of the director showing restraint. During the end of the film I was half-afraid of the director unleashing another “twist” where Casey, because of the multiple trauma she’s suffered through, develops dissociative identity disorder herself. Thank goodness!!!

THE BAD:

1. The music that kind of stopped midway through the movie. It was all really intense in the beginning then just faded out to nothing.
2. The stupid trademark director cameo.
3. It probably ran a little bit too long in some parts. The scene with the walkie-talkie was just nonsense and could’ve been edited out, I think.
4. The lack of gore. Considering that the beast was a cannibal, he looked pretty clean.

THE UGLY:

Nothing. I know, right? I can’t believe I’m saying this about a Shyamalan film either.

All in all Shyamalan’s Split was a very good movie. Performances from McAvoy and Taylor-Joy were exceptionally good and it helped that they were totally committed to belonging to the universe they were in. The way Shyamalan fed the audience rules of the film’s universe was testament to how masterful he could be because he hid the supernatural behind a slew of scientific facts that do not disprove the paranormal events of his movie. I hope he makes a third one of these things – I’m really curious to see how this story ends.

THE VERDICT: 8.5/10 because you know a movie’s good when you dream about it.

*All photos are lifted from the film’s IMDB page.