AARP Hearing Center
★★★☆☆
Rating: PG-13
Run time: 2 hours 9 minutes
Stars: Samuel L. Jackson, James McAvoy, Sarah Paulson, Bruce Willis
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Love him or hate him, twist-ending king M. Night Shyamalan, 48, is a movie industry survivor. The writer-director's latest overlong but entertaining superhero comic book mishmash is a win — though it doesn't reach the heights of his Signs or The Sixth Sense, nor the depths of Lady in the Water and After Earth. For his 12th movie, he brings together his trio of leading men — Bruce Willis, 63, Samuel L. Jackson, 70, and James McAvoy, 39. And he collides their characters from 2000's comic-book movie Unbreakable ($218M worldwide) and 2016's psycho serial killer thriller Split ($278M worldwide) into a lumpy but flavorful stew perfectly suited for the January chill.
McAvoy's multiple-personality sufferer Kevin Wendell Crumb from Split continues to work through mother issues while chaining up a cheerleading squad in an abandoned Philadelphia warehouse. It's wicked (and disturbing) fun to see this BAFTA-winning British actor cycle through his committee of characters, male and female, old and young, powerful and cowering, including innocent charmer Kevin and demonic The Beast — and don't forget prim, controlling Patricia. The crazies chew the scenery but, to McAvoy's credit, one never feels the actor does. His horrors are all the scarier because of the vulnerability of the weaker players in his psyche.