*MINOR SPOILERS*
So this is super late. Really sorry about this guys, but it’s here now so lets get on with the review.
Split is a 2016 horror/thriller film directed and written by M. Night Shyamalan. The film stars James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Betty Buckley and follows the story of three girls who are kidnapped by a man with 23 distinct personalities, as they try and escape before the apparent emergence of a frightful new 24th personality.
Now like a lot of other movies I’ve ended up reviewing on theVade, I never intended to see this film. Not to mention it took a little bit of convincing from ‘someone’ for me to go and see it. So anyways, this is my first Shyamalan film since The Last Airbender which if had rated on here, I would have created a new option on theVade Review Bar for “Horse Shi-“. But boy was this a great improvement over that last film. I really enjoy a lot of Shyamalan’s work, and I was excited to see the film that was supposed to be the one to bring him back to the mainstream.
So lets start of with characters.. they’re good. I was honestly surprised that McAvoy didn’t earn an Oscar nomination for this film. He was fantastic as he truly ended up playing 24 different characters and did a fantastic job at all of them (even though we didn’t see all of them). But yes, both his acting and characters where fantastic and ended up being the backbone to this film. One of the more surprising characters was the main character, Casey who was played by Anya Taylor-Joy. I was honestly shocked with how much I liked her character and backstory. She not only had great depth, but this no-named actress really put her spot on the map. The other girls I didn’t care about, not to mention their performances were pretty awful, but they weren’t as important.
The story behind this film was also a pretty interesting aspect to this film. Apparently the story ties in with some other Shyamalan films, but I honestly don’t care as it wasn’t that interesting of a reveal at the end considering most the audience had no idea what they were referring to. For the most part the film was pretty well paced, with no major issues I can recall in the plot. The only sort of issue I felt with the story was the fact that when the 24th personality is released, the superhuman aspect didn’t seem to fit well with me. I understood that it was a fictional film, but I just didn’t positively know if he actually had super powers or not.
Now this film did have some minor issues, the majority of them being very subjective. So my main issue? The ending. It was incredibly anticlimactic, and I felt like it was only put in so that Shyamalan could find a way to connect the film to one of his previous ones. It wasn’t horrible, just didn’t feel right to me. The only other issue I had with the film was with the two other girls. Yes, I understand their importance in the film, I just didn’t see why they were necessary. I’m not going to spoil too much for you all, but I was really happy with how those two turned out in the end.
But overall, Split was a pretty good film. Although Shyamalan holds a special place in Hell for what he did with The Last Airbender, I will say I am impressed with his first real hit in over 15 years. In the end, I decided to give Split a “Good” on theVade Review Bar. The film had great acting (for the most part) and had a great story, but its anticlimactic ending and horrible supporting characters really bogged this film down. Hopefully the sequel to the film won’t have me too split on its rating the next time around.
