truemythmedia
Boring conversations in various apartments. No sense of wonder or magic, throughout.The only thing that keeps this from being M. Night Shyamalan's worst movie is that he has made several movies that are absolute stinking piles. As we follow his career, this is the start of a real downward dive. It is the first inklings of the movie crisis that is to come with "The Happening," "Last Airbender," and "After Earth."
WisdomsHammer
No intentional spoilers.So underrated. I'm not quite sure why this gets panned so hard.The title of my review is how I sum up this movie. A bunch of misfits, each with their own special gifts, fight dark forces to save a creature out of fantasy who inexplicably lands in their midst.It's a fantasy set in an ordinary place with ordinary people, but at the end of it all, nothing is ordinary. And I don't mean there's a twist ending, there isn't. I just saw this place and these people differently at the end, and it was such a wonderful thing.Look at the cast! Amazing! James Newton Howard's score was impressive and moving, too. M. Night has made his mistakes, I agree, but this isn't one of them. This is a beautiful movie. Open your mind and your heart and check this one out.Edit: After I wrote my review, I read a few other peoples'. (I try not to read other reviews before writing my own.) This movie was severely polarized between people who really enjoyed this movie and those who really didn't! At least for most people who wrote reviews.The people who didn't like the movie tended to use words like "boring" and "contrived." People who enjoyed the movie seemed to really like the characters and the overall story.Draw your own conclusions from that. I just thought that was really interesting.
ashe0211
I saw this in the theater when it first came out, after seeing all of M Nights others movies I was sorely disappointed. It wasn't until after talking with a few friends and buying the DVD that I really got an appreciation of what the director was trying to do. I found myself in a dark room and let all other thoughts leave my mind. That's when I started getting engulfed in the story and really connecting with the characters. I felt all sorts of emotions during the movie and even learned some things about it that I had missing previously. I know a lot of people hate on this movie, and I was one of them. After seeing it again I was completely taken by the story and had a new feeling for the movie.
jb_campo
Besides Paul Giamatti, not much to get excited about in Lady in the Water.Giamatti plays the manager of this apartment complex. He has had something happen in his past that brought him to this place in life. He knows all the various players who live in his complex. He knows all their foibles and faults and good qualities. He's insightful.One night this girl comes out of the pool, Bryce Dallas Howard. This was a disappointing performance, compared to The Village where she was great. She plays this nymph who is going to do something for the planet. Giamatti guards her. All she does is look sad and cower and sometimes smile, and speaks in a soft voice. No much of a role for her, or a performance.This Korean woman and her mother play key roles because the mother seems to know something about a story about a nymph. Giamatti pulls it all together and thinks he knows how to save the day, but does he?There's also a supernatural bad guy who is trying to stop everything. But the tension, well, it's not much IMHO. At the end, a bit of a twist, but not like The Sixth Sense type. Shyalaman loves to get the twists in though. I liked this movie, but it's just OK, so 6/10 covers it. It is what it is, a simple story that was told. Giamatti was great, but otherwise, nothing you will remember.