Originally published on metropolis.co.jp on July 2010

Geez, I hope so. Note to readers: the other two movies opening this week are both better, but I thought this drab and dingy disaster would be more fun to write about. The film calls attention to one of the greatest mysteries in Hollywood today: why do people continue to give M. Night Shyamalan perfectly good money to make pictures? He hasn’t had a hit since The Sixth Sense (though Signs didn’t suck), and has repeatedly demonstrated his all-encompassing incompetence (Lady in the Water, The Happening, etc.). I’m not going to go into the story because, well, I don’t care. But I will mention the flaccid dialogue and the wooden acting, featuring Dev Patel (bad career choice, Dev), Aasif Mandvi (stick to The Daily Show) and a kid in the title role so sappy that he makes that little putz in The Phantom Menace look accomplished. The clunky plot necessitates lengthy expository sequences, which alternate with repetitious, screen-saver SFX bits. Don’t get me started on the editing. Second note to readers: if in the highly unlikely event that M. Night follows up on his shameless closing-scene threat to make two more of these, I’m going to skip ’em. Life’s too short.