**** TRAP **** another Shyamalan thing…

12,145 Views | 117 Replies | Last: 18 days ago by GCRanger
LB12Diamond
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Is the last 1/3 really that bad? I hope not. That would be disappointing.
TCTTS
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It seems a decent number of people disagree with me, but yeah, IMO, it goes completely off the rails.

I'll put it this way... so many in our audience were laughing increasingly throughout the last third, at just how stupid it was, lines falling flat, the melodrama of it all, etc.

Even though Shyamalan is kind of in on the joke? Maybe? it's so hard to tell.

Either way, it's crap.
BCSWguru
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I'm not one to completely bag on a movie but this was awful. Terrible acting. Just bad all the way around.
Anagrammatic Nudist
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Total, unequivocal, crap.

I've never been more bored in a movie. Zero suspense, awful dialogue, unimaginably stupid hoops being jumped through. I laughed out loud at the "excuse me sir, celebrity extraction" line or whatever it was. Laughably stupid.

Total garbage.
StinkyPinky
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I don't trust critics and media anymore.
Crap is crap.
captkirk
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TCTTS said:

It seems a decent number of people disagree with me, but yeah, IMO, it goes completely off the rails.

I'll put it this way... so many in our audience were laughing increasingly throughout the last third, at just how stupid it was, lines falling flat, the melodrama of it all, etc.

Even though Shyamalan is kind of in on the joke? Maybe? it's so hard to tell.

Either way, it's crap.
Every reviewer that I trust said it was crap
rhutton125
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Btron said:

Nothing M. Night makes is a piece of crap. You need to scale that back, homie.




Haven't seen the movie, but it was funny reading this and then all the TexAgs opinions on page 3.
Petrino1
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TCTTS said:

The first two thirds absolutely deliver on the promise of the premise. It's fun, suspenseful, and you're never once remotely bored. Yes, it's cheesy and forced at times, but none of that kept me from being stoked that Shyamalan was actually pulling it off.

And then came the third act.

Which I think might up there with the dumbest, most ridiculous movie climaxes I've ever seen. Just monumentally, mind-numbing stupid. And it never, ever stops, somehow feeling like it has more endings than The Return of the King.

Holy crap.

I don't care how much Shyamalan may or may not have meant for it to be tongue-in-cheek... that was… BAD. To the point where I genuinely don't understand how the final forty-five minutes or so (or was it two hours?) isn't being absolutely roasted more as the fumble it is.

That, and Shyamalan's daughter, while a decent talent/musician, in no way to exudes "pop star" on the level the movie wants you to believe, made even more ridiculous by how much daddy lets his little princess actually do (seriously, it's crazy). Any other actor/non-Shyamalan-daughter would have elevated this thing another 20%, easy.

Sadly, though, that still wouldn't have been enough to save it.

If anything, I now completely understand why Warner Bros kept this thing from critics. No offense to those who liked it (I did too, until I didn't), but that it's working for some people is just pure, dumb luck.
Agree with this. I liked the first half of the movie a lot, then as soon as they left the arena thats when it started to fall off the rails. Hartnett did great in his role, but I agree about M Night's daughter. I thought her songs and performances were ok, but she's just not a very good actress. She had such an important role in the movie that it was a big blunder to have a first time movie actress in that role.

The movie kind of felt like just one long promotional ad for his daughter's music.
uujm
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rhutton125 said:

Btron said:

Nothing M. Night makes is a piece of crap. You need to scale that back, homie.




Haven't seen the movie, but it was funny reading this and then all the TexAgs opinions on page 3.
I make crap. I know it when I see it.
Aggie Dad 26
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I was contemplating on seeing this tonight but some of the reviews on texags are making me second guess it.
William Foster
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jokershady said:


The voiceover is of a woman who appears to be assisting authorities, saying, "This individual we're searching for won't panic." And then a few seconds later we hear, "He's realized he can't get out. He's going to try to cause chaos."
Not trying to be nitpicky, but this doesn't mean he is panicking necessarily. This could just be smart strategy when a bad guy picks up a tail or realizes people are closing in on him.
Petrino1
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Aggie Dad 26 said:

I was contemplating on seeing this tonight but some of the reviews on texags are making me second guess it.
Despite my negative review, I still think its worth a watch. It was an entertaining movie and the action/suspense pretty much starts as soon as the movie begins. Also, Josh Hartnett did a great job.

But then again, Im a big M Night fan and like all his movies lol.
LMCane
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jokershady said:

He never blew me away as an incredible actor but he never came across as a bad actor either and seemed to be good at the roles he was given….but I mostly remember him in the teen heart throb roles….

Gods honest truth here….i actually didn't recognize him in the initial trailers cause I had forgotten all about him…but it was driving me nuts cause I knew I recognized the actor and that I should know who that was but I never looked it up….

Crazy that he's been gone so long….
he was in Oppenheimer!

why is everyone forgetting that?

and he was excellent in Black Hawk Down.
BCSWguru
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Dont do it.
jokershady
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well i never saw openheimer...

and i had forgotten him being in black hawk down....but to be fair pretty much all those guys with the exception to tom seizmore all friekin looked the same!!! i dare you to pick out which one was Ewan McGregor with all the gear and helmets on....

edit: forgot about bad hulk guy Eric Bana....he stood out too but only because he had actual hair....
TCTTS
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Petrino1 said:

Aggie Dad 26 said:

I was contemplating on seeing this tonight but some of the reviews on texags are making me second guess it.
Despite my negative review, I still think its worth a watch. It was an entertaining movie and the action/suspense pretty much starts as soon as the movie begins. Also, Josh Hartnett did a great job.

But then again, Im a big M Night fan and like all his movies lol.

IMO, I would definitely say it qualifies for the "so bad it's good" category, and is absolutely still worth seeing, I just can't recommend spending money on a ticket and would instead say wait for streaming.
Marauder Blue 6
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jokershady said:

i dare you to pick out which one was Ewan McGregor with all the gear and helmets on....


he was the one with the coffee pot
Aggie Dad 26
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Gonna see Longlegs instead here in a bit
MBAR
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TCTTS said:

The first two thirds absolutely deliver on the promise of the premise. It's fun, suspenseful, and you're never once remotely bored. Yes, it's cheesy and forced at times, but none of that kept me from being stoked that Shyamalan was actually pulling it off.

And then came the third act.

Which I think might up there with the dumbest, most ridiculous movie climaxes I've ever seen. Just monumentally, mind-numbing stupid. And it never, ever stops, somehow feeling like it has more endings than The Return of the King.

Holy crap.

I don't care how much Shyamalan may or may not have meant for it to be tongue-in-cheek... that was… BAD. To the point where I genuinely don't understand how the final forty-five minutes or so (or was it two hours?) isn't being absolutely roasted more as the fumble it is.

That, and Shyamalan's daughter, while a decent talent/musician, in no way to exudes "pop star" on the level the movie wants you to believe, made even more ridiculous by how much daddy lets his little princess actually do (seriously, it's crazy). Any other actor/non-Shyamalan-daughter would have elevated this thing another 20%, easy.

Sadly, though, that still wouldn't have been enough to save it.

If anything, I now completely understand why Warner Bros kept this thing from critics. No offense to those who liked it (I did too, until I didn't), but that it's working for some people is just pure, dumb luck.
Dude I was reading the first two pages of this thread asking myself how the hell people enjoyed this film. It was ATROCIOUS. I don't need all the films I watch to be smart, but I need them to not be this obviously stupid at so many turns. My theater - a Monday night showing at drafthouse in DC - and nearly teh whole audience groaned and laughed at so many parts near the end.

I left the theater feeling like he basically made a movie for his daughter to be a pop star.
Anagrammatic Nudist
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I am still mad at shelling out $50 to see this with my two kids. And it takes a lot for me to be mad at things these days. So bad, and insanely stupid.
jokershady
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Wow. Didn't expect this much of a turn based on the critic reactions….

Makes it seem like these critics want to say something positive just to keep whatever perks they have
TCTTS
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The only real perks some of them get is to attend the world premieres/afterparties, but that's usually only for the big franchise stuff like Marvel, DC, Star Wars, etc. There's a handful of personalities I don't trust in that regard, who hardly ever have anything bad to say about those movies, and in return they get to keep attending the premieres. That said, none of them are really critics, per se, they're mostly just journalists, pundits, reporters, etc.

Otherwise, no critics were invited to the Trap premiere, nor were there any early screenings, as we've discussed.

For whatever reason, though, after his years-long rut, where he was seemingly the butt of every joke, the Shyamalan love/discourse has come back around, and now reached a point where certain critics fully acknowledge his flaws, but refuse to paint them as such. For instance, they won't say he writes bad dialogue, instead they call it "Shyamlan dialogue," and if you don't like then you simply don't like to have fun. I've noticed that A LOT this past week, on Twitter, podcasts, etc, where any clique labels you a stodgy stick in the mud, and clearly, you didn't get the memo that The New Shyamalan Rules deem the flaws to be a feature not a bug, where "fun" is now the only goal/measuring stick.

It's super weird, and all very clique-ish.
DannyDuberstein
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Will probably wait for the streaming, but I've enjoyed his movies, even the completely panned ones like Old. That said, maybe it's because I lowered expectations and saw the panned ones in my living room vs making an evening of it that cost $$$
Yellerjacket
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DannyDuberstein said:

Will probably wait for the streaming, but I've enjoyed his movies, even the completely panned ones like Old. That said, maybe it's because I lowered expectations and saw the panned ones in my living room vs making an evening of it that cost $$$
I think that is the key. My wife and I usually wait a few days when a new movie comes out and see what people are saying about it. If everybody hates it, we'll still watch it, but skip the theater part. Most of the time, we'll enjoy even the bad movies as a time waster at home, but probably wouldn't enjoy sitting through them in a theater.
agdoc2001
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Yellerjacket said:


If everybody hates it, we'll still watch it
But why? It's still 2 hours of your remaining life that could have been better spent doing anything else.
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Bruce Almighty
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agdoc2001 said:

Yellerjacket said:


If everybody hates it, we'll still watch it
But why? It's still 2 hours of your remaining life that could have been better spent doing anything else.


Have you ever watched a movie that almost everyone hates but you still enjoyed?
Yellerjacket
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agdoc2001 said:

Yellerjacket said:


If everybody hates it, we'll still watch it
But why? It's still 2 hours of your remaining life that could have been better spent doing anything else.


I've learned from experience that bad movies can be entertaining. And I like being entertained.
Sex Panther
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This movie was bad but there are some redeeming qualities. The first half is actually pretty fun.


The thing I'm struggling with is what was the expectation when Josh Hartnett would get stopped by the police? What proof did they have that he is the killer? They know there's around 3k males at the concert, and a profiler tells them "Well he's going to be a 40 year old male with a dark car". So they just stop any normal looking white male and ask them "Hey do you have a dark car?" and that's going to be enough to arrest him for murder? Huh?


Unless I'm missing some detail that Shyamalan thought of (I doubt it) it just seems like an insanely huge plot hole. I get that he was just trying to work backwards from a concept that would center around making his daughter a pop star and her putting on an entire concert in a movie, but come on...


Also, I really didn't think his daughter would become a main character and have that much dialogue. She was really bad. That scene where she was acting like his mom... good lord
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Petrino1
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Sex Panther said:


Also, I really didn't think his daughter would become a main character and have that much dialogue. She was really bad. That scene where she was acting like his mom... good lord
Agree with everything you wrote, but this part really confused me. Did the pop star research him extensively and thats why she switched to acting like his mom, because he has mommy issues or something lol? I feel like I missed some dialogue where that was explained.
TCTTS
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I don't know how many people actually care at this point, but this is straight up spoiler territory for those reading this thread who are waiting to watch at home.
TCTTS
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Sex Panther said:

This movie was bad but there are some redeeming qualities. The first half is actually pretty fun.


The thing I'm struggling with is what was the expectation when Josh Hartnett would get stopped by the police? What proof did they have that he is the killer? They know there's around 3k males at the concert, and a profiler tells them "Well he's going to be a 40 year old male with a dark car". So they just stop any normal looking white male and ask them "Hey do you have a dark car?" and that's going to be enough to arrest him for murder? Huh?


Unless I'm missing some detail that Shyamalan thought of (I doubt it) it just seems like an insanely huge plot hole. I get that he was just trying to work backwards from a concept that would center around making his daughter a pop star and her putting on an entire concert in a movie, but come on...


Also, I really didn't think his daughter would become a main character and have that much dialogue. She was really bad. That scene where she was acting like his mom... good lord

The only thing I can think of is that the old lady psychological profiler would somehow be able to tell via psychological testing of some sort, or some kind of clue/tell along those lines, and that after questioning the suspect her word would be enough to detain the guy, they could then search his car, house, etc? I'm sure that's not how it works in real life, though, and otherwise, yeah, like so much of this movie it made absolutely no sense.
Aggie Dad 26
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After reading some people defending, Horizon: An American Saga, here on this forum.

I no longer know what to think when reading people's reviews. That movie was hot garbage and people here actually enjoyed it.

Unbelievable
Sex Panther
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Aggie Dad 26 said:

That movie was hot garbage and people here actually enjoyed it.

Unbelievable


Trap or Horizon?
Aggie Dad 26
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Sex Panther said:

Aggie Dad 26 said:

That movie was hot garbage and people here actually enjoyed it.

Unbelievable


Trap or Horizon?


Horizon
 
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