Other movies in this series:
None

Rish's Reviews
I've said time and again that, if tyranist and I don't agree on a movie, you can usually be sure that he liked it and I didn't. This is yet another of those occasions.
Paul Giamatti is Cleveland Heep, a sad, downtrodden apartment building supervisor. One night, into his life arrives a mysterious stranger (Bryce Dallas Howard), who is a visitor from an undersea world, here to deliver a message of hope to our frequently hopeless planet. But there are forces creeping near that seek her demise.
Earlier in the year, I wrote an essay talking about what I called the "Curse of M. Night Shymalan," which basically said he had shot himself in the foot--and indeed, the whole horror film industry--by relying on clever, unforseeable twists at the end of his movies. Either due to that essay, or for marketing or poverty reasons, I didn't end up seeing Lady in the Water the opening weekend like I had Shyamalan's previous films. But tyranist and I did manage to see it last night, when it came to the second-run theatres (or "the cheap theater," as I'd call them when living in L.A.). I hoped the film would be better than its reviews and meagre box office preformance claimed. And it both was and wasn't.
This was the M. Night film Disney didn't want to make, so much so that they terminated their (highly profitable) deal with him. It may be that for the first time in ages, Disney made the right call. Of the five mainstream releases Shyamalan has directed, I felt this was the least satisfying, the least successful.
Though referred to as a fairy tale, I had a great difficulty seeing the film that way, and couldn't really accept the universe the tale was told in. For me, fairy tales tend to take place in long ago kingdoms, or in times past, or at least in a world different from our own. This one, however, took place in the most mundane, reality-based Pittsburgh apartment complex, where people were abnormally quirky, yes, but life was just as grey and magic-free as our own.
Paul Giamatti's performance was quite good, and what emotion and connection I felt to the movie was thanks to him.
I think the problems I had with the film were problems with the script and not the direction or the acting. Maybe I'm just hard-headed, but all the talk about "skrunts" and "tartudics" and water nymphs with decidedly non-Asian names struck me as more than a little ridiculous. Stuff like the snooty, self-aware film critic character, pointing out the follies of romantic movies and horror films, just smacked of self-indulgence.
And speaking of which, of course Shyamalan once again cast himself in a small but pivotal role. It wasn't quite as distracting is the last one, since he mostly has to stare a lot and keep silent, it's still an annoying indulgence much worse than surprising twists.
The film felt uneven, felt surreal (but not in a good way), and I was detached most of the time, unable to fully engage in the film because I didn't believe it. I'm not sure if that makes sense, but that's the way I felt. Perhaps if it had been presented in a different way (as perhaps a literal bedtime story, or the amazing incident that happened in someone's life), I would've been more receptive to the tale.
There WERE twists and surprising revelations, but the film did not hinge upon them as much as the last four did (as you may recall, three of the four previous films had revelations that what we were led to believe was happening was not what it seemed), so maybe that's progress. I don't know.
Best Scare: The evil CG grass dog was quite impressive. And often quite scary.
I'd Recommend It To: I don't know. Perhaps it will find its audience on video, but I doubt I will be recommending it to anyone.
Posted: September 5, 2006

The tyranist's thoughts
When we discussed this film after seeing it, while waiting for a screening of Click to start, it was clear that Rish and I had very different experiences with the movie. I immediately saw a fairy tale and embraced all of the odd elements as natural to the tale, whereas Rish seemed to want a Romantic Horror story and was somewhat destined to be left unsatisfied.
The problem is that neither of us is really wrong. If you can accept that something so mundane can contain a fairy tale, then you may see it as I did. If you believe any of the marketing, then I think you're likely to not enjoy the movie. And perhaps that explains it's dismal performance.
I found Paul Giamatti's character captivating. The characters that surrounded him were fantastic in both senses of the word. The progression of the script nearly always moved forward, even when Shyamalan was indulging himself in a big dig at the critics. The twists were so transparent that I didn't feel that there were honestly any in the film, instead they were more like misunderstandings.
Ultimately, I saw the film as a nice fairy tale, very true to its origins as a bedtime story for Shyamalan's children. It does take quite a leap and a bit of indulgence to accept, but the tale is worth telling and I found their quiet world to be a very comfortable place for a story to be told.
I hesitate to recommend the movie simply because of its peculiarities. There are those who ought to really enjoy it, but there are probably even more that won't.
Posted: September 5, 2006

Total Skulls: 12

Sequel
Sequel setup
Rips off earlier film
Horror film showing on TV/in theater in movie
Future celebrity appears
Former celebrity appears
Bad title
Bad premise
Bad acting
Bad dialogue
Bad execution
MTV Editing
OTS
Girl unnecessarily gets naked
Wanton sex
Death associated with sex
Unfulfilled promise of nudity
Characters forget about threat
Secluded location
Power is cut
Phone lines are cut
Someone investigates a strange noise
Someone runs up stairs instead of going out front door
Camera is the killer
Victims cower in front of a window/door
Victim locks self in with killer
Victim running from killer inexplicably falls
Toilet stall scene
Shower/bath scene
Car stalls or won't start
Cat jumps out
Fake scare
Laughable scare
Stupid discovery of corpse
Dream sequence
Hallucination/Vision
No one believes only witness
Crazy, drunk, old man knows the truth
Warning goes unheeded
Music detracts from scene
Death in first five minutes
x years before/later
Flashback sequence
Dark and stormy night
Killer doesn't stay dead
Killer wears a mask
Killer is in closet
Killer is in car with victim
Villain is more sympathetic than heroes
Unscary villain/monster
Beheading
Blood fountain
Blood spatters - camera, wall, etc.
Poor death effect
Excessive gore
No one dies at all
Virgin survives
Geek/Nerd survives
Little kid lamely survives
Dog/Pet miraculously survives
Unresolved subplots
"It was all a dream" ending
Unbelievably happy ending
Unbelievably crappy ending
What the hell?