Lady in the Water

[yendi]

shadesong and I scored preview passes to Lady in the Water tonight.

This is a mini-review, with no spoilers (so please don't ask for any in comments).

The bad stuff first:

1. The script kind of blows. You can definitely see why Disney passed on it, especially in light of Night's refusal to really defend it (assuming the EW article was on target).

2. Night Mary-Sues himself. He not only has one of the biggest roles in the movie, but there's simply no need for him to be there. I know that Night needs to put himself in all his movies, but he could learn from Hitchcock's "less is more" philosophy. There's a reason people call him "writer-director" M. Night Shyamalan, instead of "writer-director-actor" M. Night Shyamalan.

3. I'm sorry, but calling the mermaid a fucking "Narf," and the evil creatures "Scrunts," was a bad idea. Bad, bad, bad. I don't care if those names even exist somewhere in "real" mythology. It's impossible to take names like that seriously. For the record, I wore a Pinky and the Brain T-Shirt in honor of the dumb naming, and had the movie truly blown, I would've shouted "poit" every time someone said, "narf."

The Good stuff:

1. The directing is superb, and does a great job of salvaging a lousy script. The fact that the mediocre screenplay and the great direction come from the same person just makes that all the more interesting. Night also avoids a lot of the "hey, I'm M. Night Shyamalan, look at me!" stuff; no excessive use of red to code for dead people, no use of reflection shots in every fucking scene, etc. We do get a wee bit of ego here and there, but for the most part, the directing is about making this a solid, fast-paced movie.

2. The acting. Paul Giamatti is incapable of giving a bad performance, even in a half-assed sci-fi movie by John Woo. Put him with a good director, and magic happens. But the rest of the cast holds their own. We get great supporting performances from Jeffrey Wright, Mary Beth Hurt, Sarita Choudhury, and, in a scene-stealing performance, Cindy Cheung (haven't heard of her? Neither had I, until today).

3. The comedy. Yes, the comedy. This is as close to an outright comedy as Night has ever come. Although the movie basically defies genres, it's closer to horror-comedy than anything. There are laugh-out-loud moments throughout the film. Deliberate ones (for those skeptical of Night after his last two movies). Even some toying with the fourth wall.

4. I scored a t-shirt from 97.1 (one of the two radio stations sponsoring the screening, although the pass we scored was from shakefire.com) for knowing that Night co-wrote the screenplay for Stuart Little.

Overall, a definite recommendation to see it (although I suspect you won't score a t-shirt), with a warning not to go in expecting The Seventh Sense/Even Less Breakable. Appreciate it as a fun horror comedy popcorn flick, and ignore the name over the titles.