Review: Lady In The Water

M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water probably isn't the worst movie I've ever seen, but it's certainly in the running for that dubious honour. It wasn't just the laughably crappy plot, the amateurish camera work that often seemed to be out of focus or simply poorly-framed, or the pervasive feeling of "oh, look, here comes yet another colourful character who's completely unlike anyone you'd ever find on the face of the Earth" - although all of those criticisms are, if anything, too kind - but also the fact that this writer-director is responsible for one excellent movie (The Sixth Sense) and two very good ones (Unbreakable and Signs). Was Shyamalan on crack when he wrote, directed and produced this, or simply recovering from a serious head injury? What else can we conclude from the fact that, in addition to everything listed in that earlier sentence, he also cast himself in a key role... as the writer of "The Cookbook", a political novel that, we're told solemnly, will eventually change the course of human history (for the better, too! Whew! He's one fine writer, that guy!)

I get that this was supposed to be a modern fairy tale. It came with its own set of rules - fortuitously provided to lead Paul Giamatti thanks to the placement of someone within his apartment block who'd conveniently heard the tales as a child - and the patented M. Night twist-a-ramas, which in this case were that nobody was actually playing the role that they themselves thought they were. But oh my, this is a steaming pile of poo! In a better film, I might have been taken out of the story by the scene in which Giamatti swims down about thirty or forty feet into some sort of "Narf chamber" and spends several minutes underwater, exploring. Oh, but Shyamalan is so very clever and shows the man finding an upside-down shot glass with air trapped under it so that he can get a burst of oxygen - never mind that, up to that point, he seemed capable of holding his breath effortlessly for three or four minutes (try that sometime). But again, this was all just more coal to Newcastle by that point in the proceedings.

The Village, Shyamalan's previous offering, was quite a letdown from his original three features. It has to be said, though, that Lady in the Water accomplishes the near-impossible, by making The Village look like High Art by comparison! And the "everything happens for a reason" ending of Signs, which I quite enjoyed, is absolutely undercut and rendered ridiculous by this travesty, especially when the guy with the "one strong arm" comes back on-stage near the conclusion so that he could wield a pool skimmer against the evil grass-wolves (if only I were making this crap up!)

It's sad to see Bryce Dallas Howard wasted in something like this, but I guess everyone's entitled to one turkey!

Run, don't walk, away from Lady in the Water!

Rating: 1/2