The Village was bad, but Lady in the Water is pathetic. It is one of the worst movies I ever seen.
It is one of the most obvious and stupid movies ever made. Every single point or statement is made completely obvious, and almost two hours of precious screen time is wasted a bunch of characters try to help a fairy in a swimming pool and figure out who is the Guardian of the Narl or who is the Healer of the Narl, and how to prevent her from being killed by the worst CGI special effect I have seen in a studio film.
Even before the movie was made, it is was in trouble. Disney, who financed all of Shamylans previous films, refused to finance the project because they thought the script was stupid. Shamylan took the project to Warner Brothers, and, according to a newspaper article I read last week, apparently lost his mind in the process, pulling crap like complaining to Warner bosses that they had put a Dumpster next to a scrub because it destroyed the shrubs artistic integrity. Maybe he should have cared a little more about his movies artistic integrity.
The plot concerns Paul Giamatti as Cleveland Heep, an ex-doctor who is now working at a matinance worker at a Philadelphia apartment complex. One day, he discovers a Narl named Story (Brice Dallas Howard), swimming in the pool, which is really a gateway to another world. What is a Narl? According to the old Asian woman who doesnt speak English, a Narl is a sort of fairy from Eastern mythology. I dont know if its real or if Shamylan made it up for the movie, but its completely ridiculous. The Narls purpose in life is to provide hope the world, but she is in danger from a CGI werewolf that is stalking her and is repelled by water (what the hell is up with Shymalan and water?). The twists in the movie amount to who is what in the Narls mythology (is Cleveland the Guirdian or the perhaps the Healer, and who is the Chorus). All of this is punctuated by tons of scenes where things jump out at the audience, a subplot involving a writer of political philsogy (M. Night himself!) who will one day cause a social revolution, and a completely unsatisfactory and pointless final scene.
This could never have been a good movie. The director got the idea from a bedtime story he wrote for his kids, and the only way this could possibly work is as some oral story, when the movie is made literal, it gets ridiculous. If some scruffy guy knocked on your door and said that he thought you might be The Interpreter to his water fairy because you do crossword puzzles, would you A. go down and start translating, or B. call some men with little white coats? No wonder Disney thought the script was dumb.
About the only good thing I can say about the movie is its not boring. This is not like watching a car crash, its like watching the Titanic sink. Even great directors can make awful movies, but the hubris of this film puts into a league of its own. I considered giving it zero stars, and I am breaking my rule of avoiding cute critics saying now. Lady in the Water is dead in the water.
Lady in the Water (2006)