M. Night Shyamalan releases are interesting. His early career is lined with amazing films with crazy twists that shift your perspective of the film, and then he released The Last Airbender and a couple other flushers, and his career has been shaky since. A lot of people really liked Split, a solid horror movie with a rising star in Anya Taylor-Joy. Then Glass became the movie people regretted was ever made, and Old was just, it wasn’t great. So, coming into Knock at the Cabin, most had the same coin flip mentality as I did: will this be something great, or will this be something that is simply there? I am here to say, I don’t know. Knock at the Cabin is an interesting film in many respects, yet also a boring film in many other respects.
In the good corner, the cinematography is better than most of his works, there is good lighting, and pretty decent direction, a lot of the problems in direction I saw in his last work, Old, are fixed here, and made a lot better. The shots are a lot more dynamic, even if the Mise-En-Scene is a little weak. The choice in actors is great, they all play their roles like they really care about them. Dave Bautista continues to prove he is the most versatile wrestler turned actor; Jonathan Goff is great in everything he does really. Kristen Cui is a great and adorable addition to this story, and Rupert Grint plays his character really well for the short period he is in the film.
Now to the meh and the bad corners. The screenplay is adapted from a novel, so the story isn’t bad; it is intriguing honestly. It brings you in early and keeps you entertained. There are a few problems though. Like I said, while the shots are dynamic there really isn’t a lot of meaning beyond what is happening. The dialogue is poor at best, a lot of the lines while performed well, are not well written. It might just be me, but the use of getting news from a TV didn’t always work. I think the set could’ve been done in a more creative way. And now the biggie, the ending was changed.
From what I know of the original story, and spoilers for both movie and novel versions by the way, the ending was different. In the movie, the ultimate choice is for one of the three in the central family to be chosen to be sacrificed by the other members of the family so the apocalypse won’t come to pass. Each member of the group of 4 invaders approaches them with this decision, eventually ending their life to bring on each tragedy that leads to the end of the world. In the movie after the last of the four, Dave Bautista’s Leonard, takes his life, the main couple, Eric and Andrew must decide who dies. They send their daughter Wen, into a treehouse to hide and then Eric gives up his life saying he saw a future where Andrew and Wen were happy. I won’t spoil the full ending, but this is how the choice turns out. It leads to a natural conclusion, where the choice is made, yet knowing the future in a vision takes away from the thrill of the film. In the book however, in the final struggle with Leonard with Andrew’s gun before this choice, a misfire accidentally kills Wen. Leonard then takes his life, like in the film, and the apocalypse still comes. The main couple of Eric and Andrew swear off God and his apocalypse saying that if their daughter’s life, accident or not, isn’t worthy enough, then he can take the world. This ending is way better than in the film, and it really calls into question why M. Night did this. What purpose is there to change an ending that is tonally in line with the movie’s story of this family, of them choosing each and being ok with their choices, that they swear off the God who chose them to sacrifice each other and won’t take what has already been lost. It is much better than the cookie cutter ending and resolution that we get.
M. Night will continue to elude my ideas of writing; he has seemingly lost his original way of creation and is watering down adapted ideas to make something consumer friendly. The fact that this movie dethroned Avatar 2 at the box office kind of proves this point. Anyways, please read a book this time around. You might get a better ending than this.
3/5 Stars
I’ll be honest, I bought the DVD because I love Dave Bautista. But from the start they did not make clear why one of the two cabin owners or their daughter should sacrifice their life to prevent an apocalypse. Yes, the news showed bad things happening, but how could either man or their daughter prevent such an apocalypse? And then after leaving the cabin, they see people and life has gone on anyway and they did not kill themselves? I liked the idea, but it never made a lot of sense and was slow moving. Not worth the nearly $20.00 I paid for it at the store.