Three girls are kidnapped by a man with a diagnosed 23 distinct personalities. They must try to escape before the apparent emergence of a frightful new 24th.
Three teenage girls are held captive in a grimy building somewhere by a madman with 23 personalities, but at least they aren't trapped in a theater watching this exercise in tedium from vaunted master of surprise M. Night Shyamalan.
A movie that you can't stop watching. All McAvoy's interpretations of its protagonist are enjoyable and the movie doesn't waste time in sequences or unnecessary explanations. [Full review in Spanish]
Split isn't a disaster; it's just all over the place and not nearly as effective as it should be for something with such a good premise and performances.
It's shot well. Its ominous setting, nestled deep in the pit of a dark, multi-layered, multi-doored complex puts you on edge. But the narrative -- LORD, this narrative -- becomes a steaming hot mess.
In short, we are watching an old-fashioned exploitation flick-part of a depleted and degrading genre that not even M. Night Shyamalan, the writer and director of "Split," can redeem.
Shyamalan doesn't do enough with the tired premise to make it truly memorable, not even bothering to give all three of the captive girls distinctive personalities of their own.
This is a filmmaker with almost no real talent for coherence, originality or purpose and in spite of his insistence on audience secrecy, his overly contrived plots are easy to figure out before the beginning of the second reel.
The movie's simultaneous evocation of both the depravity at work beneath society's deceptive surfaces and the inadequacy of the liberal technocratic order to defend against that depravity is the secret to its success.
