[spoiler]It also didn’t explain all the girl’s creepy behavior previous to that or why she wouldn’t have told her dad’s psychologist friend when she had the chance to escape with her (what deep insights from that woman too. “Trauma causes pain.” How profound.
I thought the ending was even more annoying in that it didn’t play fair with Fanning’s performance prior to that. I thought Fanning was so preternaturally spooky and “mature” in those scenes that I was actually entertained by the way she was scaring the crap out of the other characters. The movie then just goes off into the twist and the Fanning character goes from creepy and interesting to be a standard, terrified kid in danger, horror movie cliche. I wish the film had had the guts to go all the way with an evil, disturbed kid reveal. Now that would have been a surprise.
Even with all that, I thought DeNiro did a good job of making “Charlie” seem like a distinctly different personality from the “dad.” It showed a flash of the virtuoso that DeNiro is capable of being. Too bad it was wasted on such a stupid plot turn.[/spoiler]
Nobody who posts on this board would be surprised by the “twist.” It’s made pretty plain about 15 minutes into the movie, and every time anything happens, you get hints so broad that they’d be explicit to anyone over the age of six.
Then you get to the last act, the “reveal” is given like it’s something you haven’t been fully aware of for over an hour. Suspense? Dramatic tension? Forget about it.
Really, if this movie has been “spoiled” for you, it’s not going to effect your enjoyment of the movie a bit. If you screened it without ever having heard of it, you would remain just as unsurprised. It’s built right in.
That being said, there are some good performances- especially from Dakota Fanning.
It’s just that the script is insulting. To make it worse, when you’re sitting there feeling disgusted that they thought you might possibly have been surprised, they tack on the same formulaic epilogue that left you groaning at the end of De Niro’s other third-rate thriller, Godsend.
My former FIL is terrible for spoiling movies. And it’s a trainwreck that you can see is coming but you can’t stop it. If it’s a movie you plan on seeing, don’t do anything to bring up the subject if he’s around. He’s almost 77 and he’s quite doddery in his old age. He’ll say something like:
“Oh, you’re going to see Flight of the Fictitious Film Title? The end is so gut-wrenchigly sad.”
Uh-oh! Then we protest, quickly trying to change subject.
Us: “Don’t spoil the ending for us! What’s on the menu.”
Him: “I won’t spoil the movie. I only said it was very sad at the end when he dies.”
Us: “Aaaargh!.. You just spoiled the ending.”
Him: “What? What? No I didn’t! I did not! I just said he died at the end I didn’t tell you how he died or anything. I didn’t say a word about rescuing his brother and getting shot!”
I actually figured out the twist in The Sixth Sense before I saw the movie. Everyone was talking about the ending and how blown away they were, and I started thinking, “What if…”
So I watched the movie with that in the back of my mind, and I think I was aware of nuances and giveaways that I wouldn’t normally have been.
On the flip side, I pit myself for clicking on a spoiler box and seeing how Jack was able to fight Barbosa in Pirates of the Caribbean. How much more shocking that would have been if I hadn’t!
Reminds me of a comedian I saw years ago. She was mocking her “dumb blonde” sister, who was reading a biography about Abraham Lincoln. She asked her sister, “Did you get to the part about his assassination yet?” and the sister threw the book at her and said, “Well, thanks for spoiling it for me!”
You see, who the spoiler is about is a big part of the spoiler. It would have been pretty stupid to say, “Oh, there’s a big spoiler about Specific Actor, and that spoiler is …”
And Larry Mudd, I’m sure you didn’t mean to sound as bad as it came off in your post, but we cannot all be blessed with your genius. Sometimes I get what the twist is going to be and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes it’s fun to be really smart and deduce the end. Sometimes it’s fun to try to avoid that and be surprised. I have to say that I have stronger and more pleasing memories of being surprised by the twist in The Sixth Sense and to a lesser degree in No Way Out than in any of the films I oh-so-brilliantly anticipated the outcome.
Even being cued to the twist in Hide and Seek: [spoiler]I still didn’t get the bit about the teapot heating up so fast until I was in the car on the way home. I didn’t get what the smudge on his hand was. I didn’t anticipate that his office hadn’t really been unpacked.
Knowing fully what the spoiler was would make this nothing more than a pretty sad story about a girl who has a really shitty few months with crazy dad.[/spoiler]I suppose my posting privileges should be revoked.
Mmm, not really. There’s more to it than that. Seriously, don’t read this spoiler unless you don’t care any longer.
Late in the movie, you find out that Elijah Price (played by Samuel L. Jackson) is a Bad Guy, who assumed that because he is so fragile, there was some Hero out there who was Unbreakable. He set about engineering all sorts of disasters so that he could find his nemesis, and tada…
I once got hollered at for spoiling American Beauty by telling someone that Kevin Spacey’s character died at the end.The person hollered at me for mentioning that one of the first lines in the opening monologue is Kevin Spacey’s character saying “So I’m dead”.
I get really sick of people throwing a tantrum because anyone says anything about any movie, covering their ears, screaming “don’t spoil it!” Sure, sometimes people “spoil” stuff, but do you have any idea how pissy and annoying you are? One time someone threw a fit because I said… get this… that I had seen the new Star Wars movie.
Not that anything happened it. Just that I’d seen it.
Uh, sorry, that does sound pretty bad, doesn’t it? I honestly didn’t expect that anyone would be surprised, though. I watched it with my mum, who is legendary for her inability to pick up on anything that isn’t spelled out pretty plainly. It’s part of the regular drill with her that you explain what just happened while the credits roll. (Love her anyway, of course.) The thing is, she guessed what was up with Hide and Seek as soon as the thing with the cat happened, and blurted it out. Her verdict on the whole thing was “That was kind of stupid, it was so obvious.” I have never heard her say that about anything.
Well, in all fairness, it’s easy to overlook or forget things like that if you get caught up in the story. I know the first time I read The Pit and the Pendulum, I got so wrapped up in it that the ending surprised me even though the beginning made it obvious. I can see the same happening for American Beauty very easily.
So, what the cut-off point, where you no longer have to take pains not to spoil a movie?
Is it a set number of years?
Is it once a movie has left the theaters? Is out on DVD? Been on HBO? Been on broadcast TV?
Yeah, yeah, it isn’t THAT hard to be courteous, but there’s got to be some point where you can assume it no longer matters and you can just say, “Okay, it may have worked for Dumbo, but trust me, believing you can fly won’t cut it if you jump off that roof.”
I was watching* The Village* at a friend’s house, and I refused to tell them anything about the plot or what the movie was about, because it had been spoiled for me. Someone had ruined it for me, with only 3 words. They said to me:
You had to look didn’t, you? Even though you really wanted it to be a surprise.
Those three words ruined the whole thing for me, cause I figured out in the first 5 minutes what was going on.
The Real Three Words: “It’s present day”
Anyway, my friend said, "Yeah, like in The Sixth Sense, that was easy to spoil too because:
its obvious the guy is a ghost
I stared at him dumbfounded, and shouted:
Motherfucker! I haven’t seen it yet!!!
Seriously, though… hasn’t the fucking “split personality” twist ending been done A LOT, and even a lot RECENTLY? For instance, it plays into the end of Fight Club, and that movie set at a motel with John Cusack, and the Johnny Depp movie out last year. Is anyone really entertained by yet anothe fucking split-personality twist ending? I’d thank the waitress for saving me from seeing a wretched movie and seen something else, like Sideways.
