Split movie review (2016)- by Cody Leach

Full text transcript of the Split movie review:

You know what, maybe this movie is not fiction after all. Maybe Shyamalan wrote this movie based on himself, maybe he actually has dissociative identity disorder and one of his lame ass personalities took over the director’s chair after Signe’s. Yep, that’s the only thing that makes sense.

So Split tells the story of three girls kidnapped by a deranged madman with twenty three distinct personalities in preparation for a sacrifice for his upcoming twenty fourth personality. All right. Everybody will continue in my little path back down this M. Night Shyamalan trilogy leading up to Glass, which comes out tomorrow night, cannot wait to see it. Now we are in the middle chapter split. And just like my review for Unbreakable, Brian Lomax from Brian Lomax movie talk is also dropping his review. His review is already up by the time you see this video. So once you’re done watching this review, the links in the video description go on over to Brian Lomax movie talk. Hit that subscribe button if you haven’t already and you should have and check out his review and tell him Cody sent in the comments. Actually, on second thought, put in the comments Cody fucking Leach sent me here. And Halloween three season of the Witch is the shit. He’ll get it. But back to serious business, I actually already have a full review for this movie, I reviewed it whenever it first came out. I was still a very young channel. And to be honest, the reason why I’m revisiting this movie is because my thoughts have changed a decent amount on split reaction. And I think I’ve watched it twice since theaters. It is one of those movies that I’ve gained something new from it every single time that I’ve watched it. So it merits a new discussion. So we’re going to have it. So let’s set the stage for where we all were as movie fans.

When this movie came out two years ago, Shyamalan was basically a joke for the most part. He had that movie, the visit that most people liked, at least thought it was decent, definitely a step up from the past, like four or five movies that he’s done, which were just train wrecks. But for the most part, the name M. Night Shyamalan did not hold a whole lot of merit to it like it did in the early two thousands when this guy was being hailed as the next Spielberg. You get the trailer to split and it says M. Night Shyamalan split. You get James McAvoy show in different personalities. It looks like it’s going to be a little bit more tight of a movie, a little bit more confined, a little bit more small scale, which is where his strengths of a director tend to shine. And I was like, OK, maybe he’s got another good one in him. I will go see this. It looks interesting. I like James McAvoy. You got my ass in the seat and me like everybody else I went to see this movie was not prepared for what this movie actually was, which was an unofficial sequel to Unbreakable, which is my favorite M. Night Shyamalan film. Now, while on one side, I want to be like, what the fuck took you so long to make this idea come to fruition? In hindsight, I almost feel like it does better for the movie. And hopefully by the time I see Glass for the entire trilogy to have waited as long as he did, because Unbreakable, like I said in my review, did not get the appreciation and the love that it deserved back when it first came out.

If he had done unbreakable and did a split or an unbreakable sequel, whatever style he would have done back in the day, back in the mid to late 20s, the movie wouldn’t have been that big of a hit because most people really didn’t know him as the unbreakable director. The Neum is the Sixth Sense director. Some people would even think of me as the science guy before the unbreakable. So you get this movie Unbreakable, that’s gained much more appreciation, much more relevance now that we have this comic book crazy world right now and you have the sequel split. And most people that are in the audience that go and see this as soon as that score cuts in in the third act of this movie, towards the end, everybody for the most part is recognizing it and is going, whoa, is this really going to be an unbreakable movie that might not have happened if he had done it right away? Kind of a funny little way that things work out sometimes, but we’re talking about the ending pilot back. Go back, go back, go back. Cody, good things about split the things that make split stand out, the things that make split. The best M. Night Shyamalan movie to be released since Signe’s easily first and foremost, James McAvoy should have at least gotten a Oscar nomination for this role.

The fact that we got an Oscar nomination for Daniel Kaluuya and Get Out was cool enough for the horror kind of recognition for the horror genre. But the same year when you have James McAvoy delivering this performance, it still pisses me off that he went completely unnoticed. As far as the academy was concerned. He is phenomenal in this. I think it is by far the best performance that he’s ever given. And it’s one of the best performances that I’ve seen in the past number of years, just the way that he is able to give each of these different personalities that he brings to life in this movie, their own style, their own tone, their own accent, their own mannerisms. They’re like completely separate characters. It doesn’t feel like a guy just change in his voice. It feels like we are seeing multiple people portrayed by the same actor. And that is ungodly hard to do. Have you ever tried it? Please try it. When you have something like that and you see how it is effortlessly. This guy is change of personalities even within the same scene when he’s having a conversation with himself. It’s not only very disturbing in ways and terrifying to a degree. Whenever you see the situation that these three girls are put in with this guy and all these different personalities coming out. But it’s just a marvel to watch that an actor can perform on that level that effortlessly. And make no mistake, this is James McEvoy’s film. Without him, split is nowhere near as good as it is with him. He is the one that makes this a movie to remember. He is the one that makes this the best Shyamalan film since science. And I have a hard time thinking of an actor that could probably have performed and brought what he brought to this role. On the level that James McAvoy did.

You shouldn’t treat children. That shows you you are.

I’ll get you sweater, it’s ruined. Dirty. Remove it.

You have disturbed personalities with like OCD, and he’s got this obsession with watching girls strip down, you have kind of the motherly personality, which is probably the most unnerving of all of them because of her calm, collected sense, where it almost feels like she’s the one that’s going to snap and hobble them in a bed. But then you also get the personality of Hedwig, who’s like this nine year old child who kind of has a little bit of a lisp and you can tell has maybe a little bit of learning disability with just that one personality. And we’ll get into that, too. But that’s also a personality that has just as much sinister edge to him as the other two, because at the same time, all this seems like this innocent kind of naive child. There’s aspects to him where it feels like he’s this kid has been bullied and starting to lash out and starting to align with these evil personalities to kind of get what he wants almost to the point where to a degree, you can kind of look at it as Hedwig is somewhat of the mastermind of all of this, because he’s the one that kind of gives the power to all these other personalities, that he’s the one that gives them the light, as they call it. And the fact that I can talk about these different personalities as if they are different, complete characters portrayed by different actors when it’s all brought to life by one guy. Right. There’s your evidence. James McAvoy just knocks it out of the fucking park in this movie came.

Get out of here, Hedwig. Just keep the keys and let me out the door, please.

Nobody will make fun of me anymore when the beast comes. Thought that everyone would be amazing. I am. And that all of this, believe me, it won’t matter anymore.

I think you should go back to your room, please. I want to hear your superhero roots. Stay calm. It’s OK to leave.

The other biggest thing that does the most favors for Shyamalan is how downscaled this movie is compared to everything that he has done since Signe’s. This is a very tight knit movie. It’s a very claustrophobic movie. For the most part. It takes place in just a collection of rooms with a couple of scenes notwithstanding, like a little expositional scene where the doctor is on this live stream, a couple other scenes leading up to the actual kidnapping and imprisonment of these three girls.

But for the most part, it’s a very confined movie. And that’s one shtreimel on strengths as a storyteller and as a director. Always shine. He’s never been a guy that should have ever thought that he could do big action, CGI spectacle. This is a guy that just puts you in this small, confined little story and gives you so many themes, so many different aspects to different characters, so many different things that he wants to say within the small scale little story. And he gets back to those strengths with split. You get these three girls where one of them this seems off from the beginning. The other two, basically, they’re just there to show you how off this third girl is. And you’re kind of wondering the entire time as the movie slowly peels back The Onion and tells you what is up with this girl, why is she so standoffish? Why does she have this knowledge of how to kind of counteract the crazy that is this James McAvoy character and how does she know how to interact in these situations to keep yourself safe and to keep these other two safe and then even just got James McAvoy himself about what caused them to be this way? What is his ultimate motivation, this beast personality he keeps talking about? Is it actually going to come to fruition? Is it going to be something else? Does he have that much of a power of belief? And speaking in that, as far as themes this movie goes for the power of belief and the power of weakness are the two biggest things that this movie has to say.

The fact that he has twenty three different personalities. Twenty four by the end of the film, that which does have some scientific evidence tied into it, which is obviously kind of heightened to a supernatural degree here. Each individual personality has the power of belief to where they can change their body chemistry. They can change from having somebody that does not have diabetes to somebody that does have diabetes. They can go from just a regular human being to this helped up bullet proof, bloodthirsty beast, a very frightening concept that is kind of grounded in somewhat of a bit of reality into the power of belief, the fact that this person does believe so strongly that this twenty fourth personality is going to come and it’s going to carry them forward into this next level of humanity, like this evolution, all of that. And it comes to fruition because of Kevin’s power of belief and these different personalities, power of belief in themselves and their own strength. And then you also have that side of the coin, too, about the power of weakness, which is kind of the theme that they go for whenever the beast is actually unleashed and the victims that he chooses are people that have not endured any kind of hurt, any kind of pain, any kind of weakness whatsoever. They’re the technically strong on the outside looking in, but.

They’re weak as far as their inner strength, and then you have the character of Casey portrayed by Andy Taylor Joy, who on the outside looking in upon first glance seems to be the weak one in the room. But she’s endured so much hell, so much pain, so much abuse at the hands of her uncle throughout her life. All of that inner damage, all that pain, all of that trauma that she’s endured makes her the one with the most inner strength. And she’s the one that’s able to prevail the situation. And she’s also the one that’s able to kind of captivate the beast whenever he is trying to kill her, when he sees what she has been through with those scars and the damage that she’s endured on the outside. And he sees through her and says, you know, we are the broken we are the strong resource. The best stories are the ones that have things that are trying to say underneath the surface. Shyamalan does that whenever he is on top of his game. And Split is the first movie that I’ve seen by him since signs that successfully does that. He also brings back those strengths of his camerawork, his direction, and utilizing a really good score as well. It doesn’t feel like an unbreakable sequel, which I think was kind of intentional because he didn’t want to give it away right away, because Unbreakable does have a very distinct look to it. And while I don’t think that this score is nearly as impactful or as powerful as the one that he utilized in Unbreakable, it does have its own distinct flavor to it. And it does utilize itself very well in certain scenes to kind of heighten that tension and heighten that uneasiness about what it is that’s going on inside of Kevin’s body, especially when you get towards the end when the beast is actually unleashed, all the score involving kind of heighten those scenes and get in your senses going. Damn good stuff.

We are glorious.

Now, let’s talk about Betty Buckley a little bit. Now, this is the psychiatrist character who has been caring for Kevin, who has been caring for all of these different personalities, who’s been studying him, kind of trying to put out her information that she has gathered through Kevin to the world to explain all the possible abilities that these broken people might be able to have and that she’s seen shades and shines of it through Kevin. Now, these scenes between Kevin, whatever personality ends up actually going to see her and Betty Buckley’s character are probably my favorite parts of this movie, because it’s all just dialogue. It’s a dialogue where she’s trying to have a conversation with somebody that is different almost every single time that she sees them. And at the same time, there’s a suspicion in the back of her head that this is not the personality that he is saying that it is. And just seeing her kind of have a regular conversation while just subtly putting things out there to figure out if this person is kind of playing coy with her, and especially whenever she actually confronts this personality with that accusation of I don’t believe that you’re who you say you are. I think you’re one of these personalities. And you need to tell me and you have the whole aspect of the story where every single time it seems like he’s kind of satisfied her curiosity. And then later on that night, she gets an email from one of the personalities that has taken the light for a moment to try to reach out for help.

Just such a wild concept. The one person with all these different people just battling for the light, trying to figure out a way to stop the two or three evil personalities. And just fascinating stuff. I mean, even if this was not a part of the unbreakable trilogy, there is enough potential just for the character of Kevin and his different personalities and especially how he interacts with characters like Betty Buckley’s character, that I could watch two or three movies just based on him. But she gives a damn good performance in this. The last time that I saw was the happening, not the best showcase of her acting ability. Split total polar opposite. She is actually one of the strongest performances in this movie next to James McAvoy. And it’s the scenes between them, especially how it plays out in the end, where she ends up getting killed by the beast, trying to contain the evil and trying to protect Kevin and save him. That’s ultimately one of the more tragic aspects to the story. Now, the other side of the story that you get into, there’s basically three stories going on at once. And I said this in my previous review, you have the advertized story of these three girls being confined by this person who has multiple personalities and they’re trying to figure out a way out while figuring out what the fuck is going on with this lunatic.

Then you have this storyline, which is between Betty Buckley’s character and Kevin’s character, these exchange of dialogue scenes, trying to figure out what is going on beneath the scenes and what is actually going on inside of Kevin’s head that he is not telling me. Then you have this flashback sequence that kind of slowly dips itself into the story throughout the runtime involving Casey’s childhood and the death of her father and the adoption of her uncle who begins to abuse her and has continued to abuse it throughout her life, creating her into this broken character that she has become that ultimately makes her the strong character that survives this situation. Now, upon first watch, that storyline kind of bugged me because I never really was interested or invested in Onya Taylor Joy’s character or the other two girls because they just never really felt natural to me. It felt overwritten to the point where Onya Taylor Joy felt like she just kind of knew the way to get out of everything and knew how to handle every situation that came across. And the other two girls just kind of felt like we never got to know them over time. My kind of opinion of that side of the story and how it works in with those flashback sequences has changed. I do still think the other two girls are weaker characters for sure. I don’t feel like we get enough time with them to know them and we don’t get enough interaction with the three girls.

That’s not just involving them trying to keep Kevin out of the room while they try to figure out a different way to escape. The aspect of the flashback storyline, though, I do think could have been done a little bit better. I feel like the scenes with the uncle not only do they feel kind of randomly inserted into the movie as far as just an editing critique, but I almost feel like it would have been more impactful and it would’ve been more surprising in the third act scene her with all these scars, the way that the beast gets surprised when he sees it, if those aspects of her past would have came out and scenes of dialogue between the three girls times when they’re trying to either collect themselves or even while they’re trying to work it, they’re just exchange and dialogue with each other. And you kind of get to know all three of these girls a little bit more and a little pieces of her past start to come through her hints at what she has been through, maybe not even spell it out one hundred percent like they do, where it’s blatantly obvious that her uncle has been molested her for God knows how many years. I think it would have been a little bit more effective if they had just utilized gotten rid of the. Flashback stuff made it a little bit less jarring of an editing choice, but also kind of heighten the interaction between those three girls and make it a little bit more suggested and not so much right in your face about what exactly happened to Casey.

So that’s still an aspect of the story that I do have a little bit of a critique with, although I do appreciate it much more upon REWASH than I did the first time that I saw it, where it really stood out to me as a huge negative, the interaction between these three girls and just the uninterest that I had in the other two girls besides Casey. Now, one thing that I feel like I need to talk about here, because I actually neglected to even talk about it in my previous review back when the movie debuted. And it is a very standout strength, not only for the movie, but for Shyamalan himself. Is the humor and the utilization of the humor in this because he has stumbled with that in the past here. I feel like it’s utilized very well. This is a type of movie that has a certain tone to it where if the humor doesn’t work or if it’s placed in very awkward spots, it could derail the movie very quickly. But the little bits of humor that you get predominantly from the character of Hedwig are very funny. And it is a nice little moment of levity from all the tension that you have throughout the runtime of split the interactions that he has with Casey, how many times he said, etc., everything is, et cetera, et cetera. That shit is hilarious.

You came down because you thought that that was the view window.

So you could escape.

Etc., He’s done awful things to people and he’ll do awful things to you, I have to do thanks to it’s subtle but it works, it works with the character.

He gives that character again, that unique edge that makes Hedwig feel like a completely separate character to the other personalities. But it does break up the monotony of the dark and kind of somber tone of this movie goes for and gives you those moments of levity. Very, very well utilized humor.

Could you help us?

No, I’m I’m not even supposed to be here. I stole the light from Mr. Dennis, but he’ll be back real soon. And I can’t steal the life for too long or you’ll know and get angry, etc..

And speaking strictly on the character of Casey this time, too, because this was a negative that I had in my first viewing, that is not a negative is actually a positive. Now, even though I do think they could have utilized the revelations of how she gained all this knowledge and why she’s such a broken person a little bit better like I just described. But the way that they kind of subtly give Casey’s character these moments to kind of give the other two girls hints about how to behave in this situation, how to cause yourself the least amount of pain, how to get out of, you know, the terrifying aspects of what they are actually dealing with. Like whenever she tells the girl to pee on herself, when it seems like she’s about to be raped or at least stripped down naked in the next room whenever they’re getting ready to jump the girl. And she’s like, oh, no, you kind of upon second watch when you know why she is the way that she is, you start to develop these stories in your head and you kind of see these images of maybe how many times has this girl been in in situations like this to a much smaller scale, obviously, as far as supernatural wise with her uncle to where she’s tried all of the things that these two girls in the first time they’re in one of these horrific situations keeps their mind, goes to that as the solution.

Let’s jump them. Let’s do this. I’m going to work. How many times did she think she could physically get the better of her uncle to where he showed her that she couldn’t and she realized that not fighting is much easier just to get it over with. How many times that he tried to rape her to where she had to piss on herself or something to disgust him enough to where he’ll leave her alone, like there’s some really fucked up stuff that starts to go through your head with just these little subtle character decisions that she makes that didn’t land with me the first time that I watched it. But each time that I watch it, that kind of comes to the forefront more. And it makes her a much bigger character than I thought. When I first heard that she was coming back from Glass, I was like, why? What utilization are you going to have for that character? Again, aside from just a familiar face and upon rewash of this movie, I’m looking forward to how they’re going to utilize her character and what she’s going to be able to bring to the story of glass and what other interaction she’s going to be able to help David Dunn with, possibly with handling the situation of dealing with Kevin.

A lot of possibilities for just such a small scale character. Well, compared to what James McAvoy and his character is doing, that it does testament to the writing as a testament to the acting on a Taylor Joy that you can get so much out of a character through just subtle little decisions and subtle little dialogue pieces that tie to her broken past. Obviously, I kind of opened up this review with talking about it for the most part, but I will end with a big positive as far as how Shyamalan decided to wrap up this movie, because the twist, if you will, is not your traditional twist. It’s not a plot twist. It doesn’t change anything that came before. It doesn’t bring forth any new information that, like, completely alters the events of the movie or anything like that. Really, all it does is it kind of reveals to the audience what universe this movie is taking place in. And it’s good because on my first viewing, as soon as I started seeing James McAvoy crawling up the walls and stuff, I was like, oh, you pushed it too far. You lost me. You were grounded. You were you were secluded. And then you went SRAM alone and you just started going batshit crazy. And it’s cool to look at, but I don’t know, I am buying it. And then all it takes is a little bit of unbreakable score.

And seeing David Dunn sipping his coffee and I’m going that totally fits the unbreakable universe and I totally forgive everything that I just said I was wrong. Bravo, Shyamalan. And it’s a really genius way to kind of announce to the audience this is actually a sequel by just throwing something in at the end, which caps off the movie perfectly because it caps off the story, it defines the universe. It defines the tone of what is going on with all the crazy shit that we just endured the past fifteen minutes. And it gives you all you need to know about what is possible for the future as far as a sequel to Split, brilliant stuff. But with that being said, I still think that dialogue wise, that tail end little stinger with David Dunn is very awkwardly handled not because of Bruce Willis, but because of the woman that’s sitting next to him when they’re playing the news report and is talking about all the. Things that they just uncovered and this person, the horde is on the loose and the woman’s like this, just like that case about 15 years ago, that guy in the wheelchair that blew up all those people and he gave him a funny name to tell. What was it? It feels so clunky and unnatural to the point where it’s like, oh, man, like you. It’s almost a perfect ending.

If you could just give us a different actress or at least maybe have Shamal on a directed her differently or tailor the dialogue a little bit more, which wasn’t just so on the nose as an introduction to David Dunn that, you know, it could have been better. I love what the ending does, but I just think that it was handled very awkwardly. It almost would have been better if you take that woman out completely and not hold the audience’s hands so much with trying to set up all these thinking like, oh, yeah, I know she’s talking too much about Mr. Glass to show the news report and then pan over to Bruce Willis with the done on his fucking uniform or he’s sitting there sipping the coffee and he looks at it and has this determined look on his face. That would have been enough. That would have been enough. But overall, guys, this is a movie that gets better every single time that I watch it. I don’t think it’s near the masterpiece that Unbreakable is, nor do most movies that come out. But Split is a very good Shyamalan film. It’s a very good psychological thriller. It’s a very good follow up to Unbreakable. And it’s a movie that I look forward to seeing how my thoughts on it continue to evolve as I continue to watch it throughout the years.

It’s so cool off. They’re going to believe this, though, right?

They’re going to have to. So what do we do now?

He’ll protect us, so if you’re a fan of supernatural thrillers, if you have an interest in what different identities can do in a supernatural horror type setting or if you love them, I just want to see what crazy ass follow up we’re going to get from here on. Absolutely. Adds to your collection. Go out and buy it.

So what do you guys think of a split, do you think that this was a genius way to have a sequel to Unbreakable? Do you feel like it pales in comparison to Unbreakable or do you actually like it more than unbreakable? What is your expectations for glass? What are all your thoughts on Split and this M. Night Shyamalan little superhero trilogy that we have going on that I hope ends on a high note. Fingers are crossed, toes are crossed, everything’s crossed. What do you guys think? Tell me down in the comments section below, guys, and we will talk about it, please. Like and share this video, hit that subscribe button. If you’re not already a subscriber, if you want to check out some social media links, check the video description below for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter spread. Sure. Picadilly merchandise like T-shirts and mugs and other stuff designed by the great Whitney Bowan. And my patron Pager’s is a great way to give back to this channel, help this channel grow and get cool exclusive content for your eyes only if you decide to become a patron. And be sure to check out Brian Lomax’s review to that link is in the video description as well. And if you guys want to check out some more of my videos, including my full review for Unbreakable, check all that out by clicking right over here, etc..