Review: Lady in the Water
Can you say “He did it again” ? You certainly can. Both on Shyamalanism and on creativity, he wins again. While M. Night boggles you with mind games all the time, the real boggler is why Disney let him go, since this story contains a lot of elements fitting their profile. It’s a mystery, it has morale, Night’s weird sense of scare and humor, and most importantly, that slight touch of originality (of course, money-wise, it was probably a good choice, since it doesn’t track well at all around the world).
While mixing in quite a few reaching elements into this movie makes it less potent than some of his previous more focused box office hits (The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs), like always, he masterfully controls it with his keen sense of understanding the human mind.7½.