Movie Review: "The Watchers" (2024)
The Watchers Movie Review
Written by Stuart D. Monroe
Released by New Line Cinema
Written and Directed by Ishana Night Shyamalan from an A.M. Shine novel
2024, 102 minutes, Rated PG-13
Released on June 7th, 2024
Starring:
Dakota Fanning as Mina
Olwen Fouéré as Madeline
Georgina Campbell as Ciara
Oliver Finnegan as Daniel
Alistair Brammer as John
John Lynch as Professor Kilmartin
Review:
It’s “Shyamalan time” again, folks, but this time we are taking a trip with Ishana Night Shyamalan, the daughter of divisive (and inarguably talented) filmmaker M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense, Signs). She’s making her directorial debut with The Watchers, a tale of four strangers trapped in a display house of sorts in the middle of an ancient Irish forest who are essentially reality television for mysterious and deadly forest creatures. It’s a premise rife with possibilities and begging for an explanation.
Also, let’s go ahead and get it out of the way: it’s not at all fair to critique this generation of Shyamalan under the harsh microscopic glare given to her dear old dad (who serves as executive producer), but the influence in style and substance (both positive and negative) is just so glaring that it simply must be said, if only once.
That’s some messed up reality TV
Mina (Dakota Fanning; War of the Worlds) is a tortured woman living in Ireland to escape the ghosts of her past, specifically her mother’s death and her part in it. By day she toils away in a small pet shop; by night she hits the town pretending to be anyone but herself. It’s an aimless existence until she is asked to transport a rare parakeet across the Irish countryside to a zoo. When her car suddenly and mysteriously breaks down in the middle of a dense, old forest, she quickly becomes lost and is saved by a woman named Madeline (Olwen Fouéré; Mandy). Ushered into a stone domicile where one side is two-way glass, Mina meets Ciara (Georgina Campbell; Barbarian) and Daniel (Oliver Finnegan; Outlander). All three of her cellmates, so to speak, have been living in the house for months. During the day, they are free to roam the forest and hunt for food. When night falls, they must lock themselves inside and perform for the Watchers, an unseen race of deadly forest creatures who see them as a prime form of entertainment. There are some rules to follow, and breaking them can result in deadly consequences. Unfortunately for Madeline, Ciara, and Daniel, Mina isn’t great at following the rules.
The Watchers spends the first half of the film operating as a four-person set piece, feeding you hints and little bits of information that only deepen the mystery of what the Watchers are. It’s effective and entrancing. Once another layer is added to the mystery, however, the doors are blown off and the mythology is exposited in often clunky chunks. Up until this point, the script is tightly written and fairly tense. You would think expanding the tale would be exactly what is needed.
Stay away from the burrows…
The biggest issue is characterization. There’s plenty of it for Mina, and Dakota Fanning turns in one hell of a performance as the aloof and frustratingly obtuse Mina. There are some layers there. However, the rest of the slim cast are essentially caricatures with no real depth. This shallowness turns the tale into a monster story, and while the mythology is pretty cool, it’s not menacing enough to be truly scary or fully realized enough to be all that impactful. The result is middle-of-the-road fantasy fare that started off feeling very horror before taking something of a left turn.
Still, Shyamalan does have the family flare for incorporating a solid twist in a third-act banger, and she does this with aplomb. It’s one of those things that you really should have seen coming, but the execution and overall uncertainty of just what the hell is going on is more than effective enough to hide the obvious. It’s a damn fine reveal, all in all. The third act does finish on a high note, even if it does stumble a bit in overexplaining the finer points of the mythology of the Watchers themselves.
Overall, The Watchers is a solid debut that manages to overcome some uneven exposition and paper-thin characterization with a strong premise, deeply mysterious and evocative atmosphere, and a first-rate performance from Dakota Fanning. Venturing into the world of the Irish fairy tale is a bold choice for an opening statement as a filmmaker, and I’m intensely curious to see where Ishana Night Shyamalan goes from here as she steps out from under that looming shadow.
Grade:
3.0 out of 5.0 stars
