Lady in the Water

LADY IN THE WATER (2006) - July 19, 2006
Well, you've got to hand it to Shyamalan, he's definitely trying something different. Whether or not he succeeded, I'm not so sure. A fairy tale-like film about a mythical being who somehow ends up in an apartment building, and needs help from the residents to get home. The performances were uniformly excellent, and the visual look of the movie was as superb as you'd expect from Shyamalan. But Night's trademark super-slow pace hurt the film, as did the somewhat underdeveloped characters and the ill-advised attempts at humour (though there were a few chuckle-worthy moments, on the whole I think Shyamalan should stick to drama). I'm glad the Shamster is trying something different, but on the whole this didn't really work. **1/2