Mr. Movie review: James McAvoy’s character are a blast in ‘Split’

Split is the brainchild of famed fantasy-horror writer and director M. Night Shyamalan. It casts James McAvoy as a man with an eight-part split personality. Controlled and control freak Dennis runs things with his second lieutenant Patricia. Others include a goofy fashion artist, a child and the real guy. All are working toward the emergence of the dangerous The Beast.

Dennis kidnaps three young women for The Beast’s use.

What makes this absolutely worth the price of a ticket is McAvoy’s acting. While the three young ladies — including top-billed Anya Taylor-Joy (The Witch) are terrific, any number of drop-dead gorgeous actresses could cake walk through these two-dimensional characters, whose only tasks are to be semi-naked, panicked and then tough, and try to escape.

This is one of those meaty characters that actors love to play. And McAvoy is so good that in the scenes where one personality switches to another, his face almost changes shape too. The ability to slide between characters and still keep that disgusting leer on his face is frighteningly good in a frighteningly ordinary horror story.

Like a lot of Shyamalan tail-chasing plots, Split has almost nowhere to go that you can’t predict.

Split

Director: M. Knight Shyamalan

Stars: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor, Haley Lu Richardson, Jessica Sula, Betty Buckley

Mr. Movie rating: 4 stars

Rated PG-13 for mature themes, violence. It’s playing at the Carmike 12, Regal’s Columbia Center 8, the Fairchild Cinemas Pasco 12, Walla Walla Grand Cinemas.

This story was originally published January 19, 2017 at 12:54 PM with the headline "Mr. Movie review: James McAvoy’s character are a blast in ‘Split’."