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Post by DeepArcher on Feb 4, 2023 16:08:47 GMT
I adore the relentless first 30 minutes; everything up to Rupert Grint's death , is one of the better movie openings in recent memory. After that it doesn't really have any new cards to play, but I also think it keeps the tension sustained pretty damn impressively. It's a very effective claustrophobic thriller that feels like one of the most straightforward and arguably safe things Shyamalan has done, but as an exercise in sustaining tension across an entire runtime, I found it incredibly effective. Really enjoyed the performances from everyone, Bautista especially. Just a very straight down the middle, uncomplicatedly enjoyable hit from Shyamalan, so I'm sure most of MAR will hate it.
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Post by stephen on Feb 4, 2023 16:14:09 GMT
It definitely has its moments, but I feel like Shyamalan completely gutted what was an extremely unnerving premise from Tremblay's source novel and just kinda cheapened everything about it. It didn't help that every single character was thoroughly unlikable and didn't act or function like real people. Nikki Amuka-Bird and Rupert Grint were the standouts for me. Bautista had great presence but I just found Leonard so poorly written that it was like watching Michael Phelps swim upstream with an anchor on his back. He got where he was going, but it was so clumsy and I felt bad for him. I also thought the last twenty minutes were so ridiculously dumb; a smarter filmmaker would've either adhered to the novel, or made the ending more ambiguous.
The more I think about it, the more I didn't like it.
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Film Socialism
Based
99.9999% of rock is crap
Posts: 2,557
Likes: 1,389
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Post by Film Socialism on Feb 5, 2023 6:52:44 GMT
marvelous, moving, insane, etc. idk how he does it. i will watch this man direct anything
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Post by countjohn on Feb 5, 2023 21:58:49 GMT
I'm not an M Night hater and will defend even some of his lesser regarded work, but this was just bad. It's getting good reviews but my audience didn't seem to like it, never heard more laughing at things that aren't supposed to be funny at a real movie screening in my life, especially in the first act and then at the end with the bit with them turning the radio on and off. From the get go with the trailers I said he should have gone for a horror comedy with this but it's so serious.
This is the best acting I'd ever seen from Bautista, though.
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Post by mikediastavrone96 on Feb 8, 2023 3:47:46 GMT
Absolutely loved this. Immensely shot (absolutely incredible use of focus in developing tension), all the actors perfectly dialed in, and an incredibly tense premise that M. Night of course would use as a springboard to explore the characters in their fears and love.
Totally get where a lot of the criticisms come from, but I found this movie so deeply felt.
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Post by JangoB on Feb 25, 2023 10:44:32 GMT
Good shit. Shyamalan does a rock solid job of milking the most out of a very limited setting/scenario. You can see a steady directorial hand all over this, even if it's put to fairly small use. And I loved that he didn't left things ambiguous but actually went there. Great cameo too
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Pasquale
Full Member
Posts: 539
Likes: 227
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Post by Pasquale on Mar 19, 2023 17:30:28 GMT
Sci-fi, terrorizing elements. Needs a rewatch, but holy shit it's interesting.
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Post by Martin Stett on Dec 25, 2023 23:56:10 GMT
Shyamalan don't miss! Going back to the religious horror that permeated his early films (especially Signs), this felt much more like classic Night as opposed to the B movie maestro of Old and Split (both of which I liked a lot). The movie is kind of a mess - the villains are unlikable and their "humanity" is just confusing, and the twist involving Grint's character is great in concept but undermined by the ending - but the core of anger at God and hatred of his fucked up moral system is super intriguing. And this is also a return to sentimental Night, the Night that believes in the power of true love to make life worth living, the Night that thinks the scariest thing in the world is to lose the ability to care about the people who matter to you.
I feel like Shyamalan always stumbles somewhere in *all* of his movies, but he's still one of the most exciting directors around because he is such an unmistakable auteur who does his own thing, even though his own thing will alienate so many people. Definitely on board with this one - not one of his very best, but still really dang good.
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