Late Movie Reviews: "Devil"
“Devil” follows the story of 5 strangers trapped in an elevator and the attempts by building security as well as the police to save them. The 5 strangers begin to become suspect of one another as strange events start occurring in the elevator (lights flickering, someone gets bit), and then they start to get killed off. The police meanwhile are trying to figure out who out of the five of them is the killer, while the religious security guard tells them it is the devil.
The first fatal flaw of this film is that the religious guy is never right. He can’t have a better awareness than anyone else. (People that are more often correct include alien conspiracy theorists, film geeks, autistic children, and Samuel L. Jackson). Now, if the handsome leading man decided it was the Devil doing everything, alright, I’ll take it. Hell, he could even find religion from it and it would be good in my book. But the religious guy having the correct religious answer, that’s the biggest twist in this movie (which says a lot considering it is an M. Night Shyamalan movie).
If you see M. Night Shyamalan’s name attached to anything, it usually is cause for concern. With “Devil” though, there is a definite asterisks. Shlamajama was involved with the initial story, and produced the project, but he was not the director or the officially credited writer. What this means is that the otherwise predictable twist doesn’t piss you off nearly as much.
As for the characters, we never had any reason to care about any of them. Throughout the course of the movie we even learn that they are all pretty bad people. When the Devil starts to pick them off, you feel okay with it. They have it coming. You only feel bad for the Sean Penn looking security guard and the maintenance guy who really didn’t deserve what they got. Well, maybe the Sean Penn looking guy, but only because he looks like Sean Penn.
Overall, Devil is a step in the right direction for Shyamalan, but a step in the wrong direction for suspense movies.
Rating: 2
Rating System:
5 - Invent a time machine to watch this in theatres!
4 - Go find a closing Blockbuster and buy it
3 - Probably should go ahead and make this number 1 on your Netflix Queue.
2 - Keep holding out that Redbox will send you a free rental.
1 - Maybe a friend of a friend has it. You should feel ashamed for asking though.
0 - I’m sure there’s a “How I Met Your Mother” rerun you should be watching.
The first fatal flaw of this film is that the religious guy is never right. He can’t have a better awareness than anyone else. (People that are more often correct include alien conspiracy theorists, film geeks, autistic children, and Samuel L. Jackson). Now, if the handsome leading man decided it was the Devil doing everything, alright, I’ll take it. Hell, he could even find religion from it and it would be good in my book. But the religious guy having the correct religious answer, that’s the biggest twist in this movie (which says a lot considering it is an M. Night Shyamalan movie).
If you see M. Night Shyamalan’s name attached to anything, it usually is cause for concern. With “Devil” though, there is a definite asterisks. Shlamajama was involved with the initial story, and produced the project, but he was not the director or the officially credited writer. What this means is that the otherwise predictable twist doesn’t piss you off nearly as much.
As for the characters, we never had any reason to care about any of them. Throughout the course of the movie we even learn that they are all pretty bad people. When the Devil starts to pick them off, you feel okay with it. They have it coming. You only feel bad for the Sean Penn looking security guard and the maintenance guy who really didn’t deserve what they got. Well, maybe the Sean Penn looking guy, but only because he looks like Sean Penn.
Overall, Devil is a step in the right direction for Shyamalan, but a step in the wrong direction for suspense movies.
Rating: 2
Rating System:
5 - Invent a time machine to watch this in theatres!
4 - Go find a closing Blockbuster and buy it
3 - Probably should go ahead and make this number 1 on your Netflix Queue.
2 - Keep holding out that Redbox will send you a free rental.
1 - Maybe a friend of a friend has it. You should feel ashamed for asking though.
0 - I’m sure there’s a “How I Met Your Mother” rerun you should be watching.