Lady in the Water (*)

With The Sixth Sense, M. Night caught everyone by surprise and delivered one hell of a late summer hat trick. He topped himself with Unbreakable, which remains on of my favorite movies of all time. I found myself defending Signs more often than I'd care to admit against detractors who seemingly hated it. M. Night lost me a bit with The Village, but I still found that to be an interesting misfire. Lady in the Water is just a misfire. M. Night's strongest suit used to be his storytelling, but you wouldn't know that from Lady. This is jumbled, lazy, "first draft" screenwriting that reeks of self-importance and self-congratulation. It's a dumb story filled with dumb characters (Paul Giamatti's performance, aside) and it has no reason being a movie that people pay money to go see. If I must say something good about Lady, I thought James Newton Howard's score was lush and beautiful and really elevated the movie at times. Although I admire anything original coming out of Hollywood, if this is what we're going to get, I say: bring on The Pink Panther 2!