“He’s done awful things to people and he’ll do awful things to you.”
Welcome to JOE’s countdown of the Ten Best Movies of 2017. We’ll be counting them down one-by-one, with the #1 spot revealed on New Year’s Eve.
The #10 spot goes to… SPLIT
Irish Release Date: 27 January
Cast: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Haley Lu Richardson.
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Budget: $9 million
Worldwide Box Office: $278 million
Prior to this movie, all love and hope for Shyamalan had been completely lost. After the one-two punch of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, things went across some rockier ground, before the streak of Lady In The Water, The Happening, The Last Airbender, After Earth and The Visit which should have ended his career permanently.
So heading into this psychological thriller with zero optimism and a real sense of confusion as to how he managed to rope a decent actor like James McAvoy into proceedings, we can’t properly describe the level of pure entertainment we got out of this edge-of-the-seat kidnap/horror hybrid.
Clip via Movieclips Trailers
McAvoy is clearly having an absolute ball playing nearly two dozen different characters (although, to be fair, we don’t exactly get to meet them all), and he ranges from crazily menacing to creepily innocent with aplomb.
Meanwhile, his supporting cast including up-and-comer Anna Taylor-Joy as one of his kidnapping victims, and Betty Buckley as the therapist who unfortunately may be too good at her job for her own good, all bounce off him fantastically.
Shyamalan himself learned the mistake that he isn’t too good at dealing with large scale stuff, and manages to set most of this movie in a small number of rooms in the basement of a creepy building, constantly cranking up the tension and not afraid to get nasty and violent when the plot calls for it.
Even better (and maybe skip the rest of this paragraph if you haven’t watched the movie yet), is that Universal clearly knew they were back on to a winner, and immediately green-lit the sequel we didn’t even know it was a part of. Yup, Glass is coming in 2019, as it turns out this movie is taking place in the same universe as Unbreakable did, and McAvoy’s The Beast will be sharing the screen with Sam Jackson’s Mr. Glass and Bruce Willis’s unhurtable hero.
We can’t wait!
For further reading on our end of year list, check out the following:
LISTEN: You Must Be Jokin’ with Aideen McQueen – Faith healers, Coolock craic and Gigging as Gaeilge
