Sunday, July 23, 2006

"Lady in the Water" | Salon Arts & Entertainment:

Up-front, I must tell you that by reading this, you may encounter a spoiler or two, not because I want to wreck any potential surprises in "Lady in the Water," but because I no longer have any idea what constitutes a surprise in a Shyamalan movie. The fact that Bruce Willis, in "The Sixth Sense," was actually dead -- OK, that I got. But in "Signs," when the alien turned out to be a tall, faceless extra tiptoeing around Mel Gibson's living room in stretchy PJs -- one who could be vanquished by a bucket of water -- I lost all faith in Shyamalan's alleged mastery of the surprise-shockeroo plot twist.