Lady in the Water - 5

I'll agree with the "haters" that this is not up to the quality of film
that M. Night is capable, but it doesn't suck either. It does what his other films have done on some level, that is both critique and use genre to make the viewer conscious of their own viewing (I think this is Shyamalan doing his own version of Tolkien and Narnia). In this film, the fault is that it comes off as more didactic than his previous films. Having a film critic get eaten while describing what should happen in a film of this sort, is more resonant with the Scary Movie series, than with an intelligent film. But it lives up to its children's bedtime story theme, which I think our culture has an aversion for, which explains the massive criticisms. The plot is easy to follow, and the characters are believable and fallible, which makes the film make more sense.