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| My Review | |
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BMV 06:18 pm UTC 06/10/07 |
| In reply to: | Anyone seen Lady In The Water? - Wilbury 12:40 pm UTC 06/10/07 |
| Here's a review I wrote of it back in January of this year, when I saw it on DVD: I also watched Lady in the Water, Mr. Shyma-langa-ding-dong's latest. I remember it got panned pretty well by the critics, but I seem to remember a certain someone recommending it, so I thought I'd give it a shot as I'm always a sucker for some nice magical realism. Now, for me, Shymalan excels at a few things: cinematography, suspense, and a sense of purpose. That is to say that all of his films have some kind of point: a lesson learned, a meaning, etc. Normally, this justifies the suspense/horror, etc. However, what I've felt Shymalan has never really gotten a firm grasp on is logical storytelling. Logical storytelling, not just storytelling in general. Watching his movies, one can clearly see that he *wants* to succeed with telling a good story and in most cases he does a hell of a good job in building the foundation for a good story, but, somewhere along the line, it just never matures. Take this film. The "story" of the film would make a wonderful backstory to an actual movie. The idea of this sea woman (a Narf) and the Scrunt out to get her, and the interaction with normal people, and the Eagle coming to take her home. Great stuff for a backstory. Unfortunately, Lady in the Water never produces its own story. What was the point? Only to get this woman back home safely? What kind of moral is involved here? It's a bedtime story/fairy tale right? What was the big moral? With these kinds of stories, the moral has to be pretty darn obvious (if to be simply understood by manking and, thus, passed down from generation to generation). While the mythology of Narfs and Scrunts and Eagles sounds fascinating, never did I understand what the point was to it in the first place. The closest I can understand is that the "common folk" realize they will "do something special." Sorry, that's too vague. All fairy tales say this. Shymalan should have sat on this project for another few years until he could round-out the story better and actually make it a story worth telling. Now, I did enjoy many elements of this. Viewing the Scrunt by using the mirror was just wonderful. Very imaginative. The Eagle ending was superb. The idea that all these tenants in this apartment complex had come together for some "greater reason" was a nice concept. Still, I thougt the Narf was rather creepy and unsettling. I didn't empathize with her. I didn't care if she got back home or not. | |
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