Split (2016)

[ElieB 238]

Guys. Has anyone seen this yet? It's such trash! And sooooo exploitative of teenage girls in underwear. And yet getting pretty good reviews. Went in with an open mind based on that alone but really hated it. It had one decent idea and ruined it by piling shit all over it. Was really hoping to enjoy some hit pieces on this one but I can't even do that cause reviews are good and it crushed the box office.

 

I'm left to depend on you, fair heynongmen. Go see it, report back here. I guarantee you WILL be disappointed. It is NOT good.

 

 

But, it is very laughable in the moments that aren't total silence or slow-pan.

[ElieB 238]

I think MacAvoy set a record for most villains played by a bald actor in a single production. So there's that.

[RyanSz 3140]

Actually ended up not hating it as I have other Shaymalan movies and thought Mcavoy was fantastic. The whole clothes removal was pretty bad but I guess made slight sense in how the antagonist viewed "pure/impure" people, though there were other ways that could have been handled and the end reveal for the lead left more questions than answers. The subplot shocked me the most as it was pretty dark considering what M. Night has done in the past. I was thankful that

there really wasn't an M. Night twist that we are accustomed to seeing, though the tie-in to Unbreakable made me think that he threw it in midway during production when he realized that he could finally go about completing the trilogy he had planned for the character played by Bruce Willis in that film.

[ElieB 238]

about midway through it really started to remind me of Vampire's kiss. That combination of repetitive scenes with his psychiatrist giving terrible advice(lol) and Mcavoy himself indulging his own psychosis. Only it didn't have the balls to let the audience question whether it's really true or not. (Though I know most people side with: No, he obviously wasn't becoming a vampire)

 

Those who will take it less seriously will really enjoy the insanely shifting accent work Mcavoy is doing, might have been my favorite part. But towards the end his god awful speechifying was making me face palm. Add to that the very murky morality espoused in the final confrontation. That reveal left me with a lot of "WHAT?!" rolling around my head. Especially after that super dark molestation subplot in the middle. There were literally people leaving the theatre with their kids hahaha.

 

I liked the cameo but felt the climax was all very ho-hum. I was predicting a handful of twists but it just sputtered out.

 

Also, is it just me or were there definitely scenes from the tv spot that just weren't in the final cut at all? I had a completely different impression of it going in than what it actually turned out to be.

[RyanSz 3140]

Yeah that is normal for marketing companies to include scenes not in the movie as to not give away too much of the final product, but it's kind of a double edged sword where people are expecting that stuff in the movie and then not getting it. There were things that made me think that the final form of Mcavoy was going to be confronted by cops in the train yard as the trailer made it seem, but I felt that worked better than the molestation thing which was so much darker than anything I've seen in M. Night movies, which is only made worse in that it's shot well enough that you don't have to see so much to instantly have your mind go to that scenario. I will say that this was shot in a way that makes me remember that M. Night was a quality director at one point before relying on a twist trope that ruined everything he's done over the last decade. I liked the cameo because I was able to remember the reference, but some of my friends and people in the theater were lost as it is a reference that is older than a good portion of the audience that would be seeing a PG-13 movie.

[bella_008 188]

I liked the cameo because I was able to remember the reference, but some of my friends and people in the theater were lost as it is a reference that is older than a good portion of the audience that would be seeing a PG-13 movie.

 

So apparently the original ending actually had Bruce Willis's character saving the girl but not enough people remembered him to understood the reference so they changed it to a small cameo.

[ElieB 238]

Holy shit I would have loved that so much more than the non-climax we got instead. Unbreakable is definitely my favorite M.Night joint. Looking forward to catching Sam Jackson in xXx next weekend.

[NathanGordon 1096]

Is this theatrical in any way or can I watch at home?

[RyanSz 3140]

This can be watched from home unlike Unbreakable or Signs which really benefited from a theater surround sound system. As for the third movie in this trilogy, I want M. Night goes crazy with Easter eggs/cameos to where we see Haley Joel Osmont working as a supernatural investigator, Mel Gibson doing television sermons, and Mark Whalberg teaching a class at the high school the girls from this movie go to.

[bella_008 188]

Holy shit I would have loved that so much more than the non-climax we got instead. Unbreakable is definitely my favorite M.Night joint. Looking forward to catching Sam Jackson in xXx next weekend.

 

My friend works for the studio and she told me about it, apparently Bruce Willis is to recognisable but unbreakble isn't, which means audiences were really confused as to why he was in the end but hadn't been in the whole film, but they understand the concept of a end of movie cameo thanks to marvel.

 

Is this theatrical in any way or can I watch at home?

 

I'm pretty sure it's only available in cinemas at the moment.

[RyanSz 3140]

Yeah the cameo worked for me because I remembered Unbreakable and had liked that movie. Yet since that movie came out 17 years ago, many of the people who saw this movie aren't old enough to remember it. While I thought Unbreakable was a good movie, it sort of disappears in the shit storm that is M. Night's career after it came out. He's spent that time since making increasingly worse movies that people don't remember the good ones outside of the Sixth Sense.