Split – Contains the most well-known ‘twist’ ever

Once upon a time, film-maker M. Night Shyamalan could do no wrong.  Then, almost as abruptly, he could do no right.  He made ‘The Visit’ which some claimed went some way to regain his previously excellent reputation, but it wasn’t until ‘Split’ which really reinforced that he was back in business.

His early films became synonymous with having a ‘twist’ at the end – one that you never saw coming.  However, once audiences got wise to this trait, he stopped trying – especially when the twists became a little too over the top to be believable. ‘Split’ has, what you might call, a ‘twist.’ And, once this became common knowledge, it seemed to help the film snowball and become much bigger than its initial predictions.  Whereas most people respected others enough not to let slip the ending to Shyamalan’s earlier films such as ‘The 6th Sense’ and ‘Unbreakable,’ reviews seemed to be only too happy to give the ending away in order to help promote it.  So, with that view mind, I too will let everyone know that the ending implies that ‘Split’ is actually (a kind of indirect) sequel to ‘Unbreakable.’

However, it’s definitely not a requisite to have watched Bruce Willis and Samuel L Jackson’s 2001 outing in order to understand ‘Split.’ Here, James McAvoy plays a man who suffers from ‘multiple personality disorders.’ To be precise he has 23 personalities, most completely bonkers, but even his worst doesn’t compare to the 24th personality which is on its way.  He then kidnaps three teenage girls and they have to work out how to escape before this psychotic 24th personality comes into play.

And that’s about it.  You can kind of guess how everything plays out (especially now I’ve given away the ending – sorry!).  There’s actually not that much there in terms of story-telling.  However, it’s not all bad – mainly due to McAvoy’s performance.  I know that some people have called his switching from one personality to the other ‘Oscar worthy.’ I’m not sure how much he should have at least been nominated, but I did enjoy his performance and he puts his all into the role.

This contrasts to the three girls who are pretty forgettable.  One gets more screentime and backstory than the other two – guess why that is?  But, anyway, seeing as the film can’t just be the girls failed escape attempts piled on top of each other, until one or more ultimately either gets away or dies trying, it gets padded out by plenty of flashbacks of McVoy’s character visiting his psychiatrist for various exposition segments.

I know a lot of people have loved this film and heaped praise on it.  Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed it and would probably watch it again some time.  However, I wouldn’t say it’s as revolutionary as some are making out.  It’s long and a little drawn out at time.  But, McVoy is clearly able to carry the film and the fact that it’s linked to ‘Unbreakable’ add extra points, so to speak.  It also sets up the final part of what is going to be a trilogy and will certainly get me ready to watched the upcoming concluding part, ‘Glass.’

7/10 if I woke up on Groundhog Day and had to watch this again, I could live with that