When it comes to Shyamalan, a lot of the reason there is a such a big disconnect in reception for his films is that some people are trying to fit his b-movie blocks into a serious drama hole.
There's suspension of disbelief....and then there's doing that for essentially every scene, every time. I mean, who's going into this movie expecting a masterpiece? Obviously, I know what kind of movie to expect, but in that world it's still beyond bad. You can't enjoy the ride if the Rollercoaster is magic and does whatever it wants at any time and then the roller coaster midway turns into a lazy river.
It’s an insane presume that’s a blast if you just sit back and have fun. Like Aaron said it ain’t that deep.
I'm not gonna say anyone's wrong for disliking it. I just had such a fun time watching it that I completely disagree lol. It is dumb, sure, but I really think that's part of the charm here. It's like Hitchcock on steroids.
I’ll have to watch the movie again, but I thought that any male suspect that left the concert venue during the show was going to be checked by the cops
Yes don’t remember what if it was a finger print or something but everyone would be checked when leaving.
Trap (2024, M. Night Shyamalan) Bring your daughter to work day the movie. M night plucks us from the audience, takes us by the hand, leads us up the stage and says “the best thing that could happen to you is to meet my daughter”. M Night crafts a lovely sentiment in a clever way, doing nepotism out in the open without coming off as snide and overly selfware. Its reflected in the text where the dad's primarly goal is to dodge a murder rap but also giving his daughter a special night. M Night in the back of the van leaves us smirking knowing he got away with making this movie. The movie is at its best while it stays in the concert. The tension rides on him staying hidden looking for escapes while balancing being a concert dad, which works better than the mastermind super criminal arch outside. The concert itself is banging, best set of rip off soundtrack songs i've heard, the FM synth plonk in Like a G6 goes harder than the original, i've had dark horse and Cudi in my head and just been in a 2010s club vibe all day. Theres so many fun and cool moments, many of them don't make literal sense but the choices create a world where you suspect youre trapped in a dream but can't quite prove it. Everytime time the enemy mum is on screen is glorious. The cuts to her in the crowd with her daughter screaming “DONT TELL ME HOW TO BREATH” and another cut with her response “YOU BEAST”. The way M Night cuts and frames the scene where shes talking to Cooper while the police smash some guy. The mum is framed off centre so you can see the action behind her and the cut back to copper is dead center and very close with a slight angle, but when the action is over and we cut back to the mum he keeps the angle and its effect together with the performance really come together to amplify the scene. Cudi's (The Thinker LOL) fig kombucha bitch! line and then yelling at his assistant to “KNOCK HARDER” at a door he's standing next to. The one part that annoyed me was the singers handcuff limo escape, as I said there were plenty of choices in the movie that didn't make literal sense but often added tension to a scene or contributed to the vibe, this one felt lazy and was uninteresting and an unsatisfying resolution to the scene and the singers' arc in the movie. The best twist is when after the bizarre car role play scene the garage door lifts and the family is just standing in the driveway. We are mentally prepared to start the car prisoner sequence with copper in the driver's seat, instead we get a jump scare subversion, Copper’s monster is being exposed to his family, caught off guard, not in control, in broad daylight and having that confrontation forced upon him in full view of the neighbourhood.
Rewatched The Prestige and it's kind of Trap-adjacent. I'm not a big Nolan fan, I tend to think (Oppenheimer and maybe those first two Batman flicks aside) his reach exceeds his grasp almost always and whether or not the suspension of disbelief works widely depends on how enjoyable the film is as a whole. The Prestige is full of silly turns that fall apart as soon as you think about them for longer than a few minutes, but it also winds up being one of his most enjoyable simply due to the performances and the way the movie is, itself, structured like a series of magic tricks. I should probably revisit Interstellar because the third act of that one completely lost me when I watched it, but TENET seems like a better example of the kind of incomprehensible Nolan stuff that is not enjoyable for me to watch.
It was always interesting in his early career where The Prestige was held up as the prime example of his work. Memento was always better and more interesting.
I have seen Kubrick's films so many times but only once for Barry Lyndon. It is one of those films that feels like climbing a mountain.