Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Cast: Dave Bautista, Jonathan Groff, Ben Aldridge, Nikki Amuka-Bird
Have I Seen it Before: First opening weekend movie of the year.
Did I Like It: By the time I’m posting this review, the notion that Dave Bautista is the greatest actor to come out of the world of wrestling is going to feel like a cliche. The Rock may be the greatest movie star—even that much is debatable—but Bautista is a pillar (maybe really a tank) made of restraint and gentility (an odd choice for a horror film, but I’ll allow it), punctuated by fury and violence. It’s an absolute blalancing act of a performance, and he pulls it off. I’m imagining it won’t be for this film, based on the release schedule alone, but one day this man will win an Oscar one day. Mark my words.
The rest of the movie is fine. I was engaged with the story, and I wasn’t even snared in the classic M. Night “when’s the twist coming” cycle until the third act. Which, spoilers, that twist never came. Some might be put off by that (after reading about how the ending changed from Paul Tremblay’s novel, it’s unassailable that they made the right choice), but when a level-headed case can be made that Signs (2002) or The Visit (2015) are his strongest movies*, largely because he was able to shed that unspoken obligation with the moviegoing public.
Unfortunately, things fall apart for the movie the longer I’m away from it. The element I keep thinking about the most is not a significant lack of backstory or mythology (I actually kind of like that, even though there’s enough of an absence to make me wonder if Shyamalan or Tremblay had the whole thing worked out all the way) but the fact that I’m not sure any kind of live stream would keep recording after the tsunami reached land. When the plot is that thin, the holes show a bit more glaringly.
*I’ll never give up on Unbreakable (2000), even if things eventually careen towards Glass (2019).