Tension starts to build in the broken down elevator

The attempt to “shock or impress” you with Shyamalan’s mind takes place in an elevator of a high rise building in Philadelphia. The plot was rather brilliant as the action was almost entirely shot in a stuck elevator set on the 21^st floor with five strangers, Sara (Bojana Novakovic), Ben (Bokeem Woodbine), Tony (Logan Marshall-Green), cranky old lady (Jenny O'Hara) and a salesman (Geoffrey Arend). The thought of getting caught in a broken lift in a tower to most is frightening enough not to mention lights flickering like in disco bars and annoying music fiesta repeating over and over again with poor ventilation, tension and paranoia started to build within them. Things started to get “ugly” not long after. Over at the lift control, the lift was overseen through a camera by two security guards and one explaining about the devil’s coming and its endings and so on. It was pretty comical and pointless at some point in the movie. Perhaps his character was a guardian angel that ended up being a security guard. Not surprising the film is filled with clichés with innocent characters getting affected by the “horrific” event taking place, but yeah, the dammed is at work here.

Filled with fear Sara being defensive

The technique used to try inducing fear in the audience went dull and ineffective with the lack of creativity and repetitive recipe. In terms of character maturity, they were flat and uninteresting which might have potentially disconnected viewers from engaging sympathy, bias or interest in any of them. The makers did try to add a sense of mystery on who is the villain or possessed with each event taking place by introducing misdirection among the characters. However it was difficult to even heed at any with them being all so poorly developed. The mystery which first intrigues the sense went down the pitfalls altogether. Pertaining to its cinematography, the upside down Philadelphia in the beginning was oddly unique but did not have much sense in them but conceivably a visual flair. The cinematographers did manage to craft an eerie setting and interest for the film at the beginning but failed maintain its fine start along the way. As for music composition, the booming inception-like music introduced to tense up the setting was rather pretentious and again uncreative.

The film failed to explore and utilize its advantages to produce great suspense craved by the audiences. One might have been expecting tight gripping and mind-boggling experience but sad to say the movie did not deliver. With imaginations, life like characters and mind stimulant being deficient, the film is easily forgettable and a re-watch is most unlikely for many. All in all “Devil” reassures the south heading of Shyamalan’s works after the blockbuster The Sixth Sense and Sign which is more gripping and disappointing than the film itself.

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Trailer below:

This entry was posted by anthonyt, on Sunday, October 17, 2010. You can leave your response.