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Shelf Beauties
by Willie Waffle
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Lady
in the Water
Lady in
the Water is a new
kind of movie from writer/director M. Night Shyamalan. He
doesn’t provide us
with a big twist, but he does need a new writer.
The movie is silly and funny in the wrong
places
Paul Giamatti stars as
Cleveland Heep – the building superintendent for a working
class apartment
complex in Philadelphia. He stutters and stammers
his way through
life, but the residents like him, and recognize that he is trying to do
the
best job possible. Lately,
Cleveland
has been having
troubles with the pool. The
filters
constantly are clogged up with strange hairs, and he has been hearing
someone
swimming out there late at night after the pool has closed for the
evening. Finally,
he catches the young lady,
Story (Bryce Dallas Howard), but soon realizes SHE’S NO LADY!
Who is this mysterious
creature? What does
she want from
Cleveland and the people of The Cove apartments?
Lady in the Water is a
fantasy movie much like or Lord of the Rings or The Chronicles of Narnia, but it’s
sillier and never wraps up the audience in the challenges the characters face. As
soon as people hear the movie was written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan,
they start to look for THE BIG TWIST or surprise you get in his other movies
like The Village and The Sixth Sense, however, this is M. Night’s most honest
film. That doesn’t make it good, but at
least you can watch it without trying to wrap your brain around the possibility
of something totally different happening, living with the disappointment of
figuring it out early, and realizing it was a dumb idea (like The Village)
Lady In The Water is a fairy
tale come to life, but Shyamalan doesn’t let it play out like an innocent
tale. To make it hipper and more
appealing to modern audiences, he adds plenty of humor, which is mostly funny
and entertaining. but it starts to distract from the story as the film moves
towards what should be a massive, exciting and shocking climax. There is a point where the comedy needs to
come to an end, so the tension can build, but Shyamalan cruises past that point
like Danica Patrick speeding down the straightaway as I wave a sign asking her
to marry me. Also, he alludes to certain
powers Story might have, but doesn’t develop it enough, which would have added
to the magic.
Sadly, Lady in the Water doesn’t
have enough of the scarier elements you might be expecting (especially if you
have been watching the commercials and movie trailers, which make it seem like
an ominous movie). The film’s main
villainous creature is fine enough, but, maybe because of budget limitations,
we don’t get to see some of the other mythical creatures in a way that we can
appreciate them and the artistic mastery used to create them for the movie
screen, which is surprising for a director as good as M. Night.
Worst of all, Lady in the
Water feels like it borrows from other material a little too liberally. Is Bryce Dallas Howard supposed to be Little
Red Riding Hood trying to avoid the big bad wolf that chases her throughout the
movie? Is Cleveland Heep supposed to
find his lost spirit and faith like Mel Gibson in Signs? Is this crew of apartment dwellers supposed
to come together like the Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring to achieve their goal and save
humanity?
Giamatti (a fantastic actor
who can do anything), Howard (now in the running with Anne Hathaway and Natalie
Portman for the position of my super secret movie girlfriend crush) and Bob
Balaban (hilarious as a bitter movie critic) all put in great performances, but
one has to wonder, to what end? Shyamalan
is a great director who shoots the scenes in very provocative and interesting
ways (especially little clues that danger is on the way, which get the audience
prepared to be scared), but the material in this film is lacking, and Lady in
the Water comes off as a bit too weird for its own good. He seems to be reaching to make this a
magical, important movie, but falls short of drawing in the audience into this
massive, life changing situation. We
remain detached, which makes the time to watch the movie feel wasted.
1 ½ Waffles (Out Of 4)
Copyright
2006 - WaffleMovies.com
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