Split

M. Night Shyamalan seemed to be getting back to his roots with 2015's clever, funny, and tension-filled "The Visit," a found-footage style tale about two kids going to stay with their weird grandparents had the requisite Shyamalan twist, but it all worked. Film lovers rejoiced. So when the trailer for his new thriller "Split" premiered, audiences were on board once again. A nifty two-minute spot showed a trio of teenage girls getting abducted by a menacing James McAvoy, who seemed to have a whole litany of personalities -- one being something called "The Beast."

Cut to actually seeing the full-length film. Once again, Shyamalan has let his ego take over, and concocted a confused mess of a movie that never thrills and gets tangled up in its own fractured web. This is a first-draft script that desperately needed another half dozen passes and some guidance from a decent studio exec or a good friend that could get Shyamalan out of his head. There are too many ideas fighting for the spotlight, much like McAvoy's Kevin, who has three dozen personas all vying for attention.

The film opens with Casey (Anna Taylor-Joy, "The Witch") at a birthday party with two girls (Haley Lu Richardson and Jessica Sula) who don't like her. Casey is the dour semi-goth kid with a dark past and the resulting gloomy personality we've seen a hundred times. Casey's dad is about to drive the girls home, but gets knocked unconscious by Kevin, who enters the car, knocks out the girls, and brings them to his lair.

The girls, of course, are terrified, although we never get a firm grasp on what Kevin wants to do to them. At one point he drags one of the girls out of the room much to the distress of the others. Within seconds he brings her back. She looks shaken up, but nothing has really occurred. It's like Shymalan wanted to imply rape but didn't have the guts to go there in order to maintain a PG-13 rating. Because of this, the movie is tepid and unclear. What is going on? What is Kevin's endgame?

To flesh out this "barely-there" plot, we eventually meet Kevin's therapist, Dr. Fletcher (Betty Buckley), who exists only for endless exposition about Kevin's personality disorder. Most of these scenes include Dr. Fletcher asking countless questions one after the other to the point of silliness. It's also fairly dull, because as this is occurring, we still don't know what's at stake for the girls.

Eventually, we learn that there is yet another personality lurking in Kevin's psyche and that's the one to really be afraid of, because it might include a physical transformation. But again... why? Huh? Where did this mythology/pseudo pyscho-science come from?

Everything seems to exist for Shyamalan to twist his plot into whatever shape he wants it to go. The concept is totally there, but the execution is terrible. The movie ends up being profoundly boring and underutilizes the idea he's come up with. Why does Kevin need that many personalities if we only meet a handful? Perhaps scale it back so that everything is interesting and important. And for Godsakes, this isn't a play. Most of the film is endless conversations that don't really go anywhere. When it's supposed to get scary, it just gets head-scratchy. Add into this Casey's own icky back-story that makes her finally go all, "Let go of her, you bitch." (The other girls are unnecessary except to be early killing fodder.)

And finally, the twist. It's not even much of a twist, but there is one and it comes out of nowhere, and you just sit back and go, "Why?" It's out of left field and there's no setup for it, and it ends up having no weight at all.

The best parts of the film (the only good parts) are the performances, all of which are made better by the actors, not the script. Taylor-Joy is a great anti-heroine, McAvoy chews the scenery with aplomb, and Buckley is always a welcome sight on screen. But as usual, Shyamalan can't get out of his own way and continues to think he is the most brilliant story technician on the planet. In the book he wrote about the making of "The Lady in the Water" he explains this exact damning trait of his. He knew he should have listened to countless people who told him the script and the movie weren't working. You'd think he would have taken some notes from that debacle. But yet here we are after a promising new beginning, only to find Shyamalan is back to his old tricks. And not the good ones. I guess you can't teach an old dog.... Oh, you get the picture.