With things like The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable on his resume you have to hope that writer/director M. Night Shyamalan, when given basically a blank slate to create a movie, could come up with something inspiring and enthralling. Unfortunately the descriptions that apply to the mess that is Lady in the Water are more along the lines of “pretentious,” “ridiculous,” and even just “downright terrible.”

When apartment building superintendent Cleveland Heep rescues who he thinks is a tenant from the pool he soon finds out she’s a creature from an old bedtime story that is trying to make her way back to her home known as The Blue World (rolling your eyes yet?). Mr. Heep and the rest of the apartment tenants must band together to help her achieve her safe return back by fighting off another creature who is determined to keep her in our world.

Shyamalan’s problem that he is a better director than he is a writer is more evident here than in all of his work (including the recent The Happening). Although there is a certain admirability about the fact that he’s trying to do something unique, the problem is the result is still that damn bad, originality or no originality. It’s not even so bad that it becomes good in that sort of guilty pleasure kind of way; it’s just outright bad. And it’s a shame as there are aspects, such as the background story of the main character and just the overall mythology, that shine of potential had they been applied in a different way or perhaps in a different film altogether. I have no doubt the movie world would be far better off if Shyamalan had just immediately walked way from this one the minute he put the first word on paper.

Lady in the Water could readily be described as the opposing side of The Happening’s coin. They share the inconsistencies, the countless examples of misdirection, and lack of trademark Shyamalan elements, particularly the twist we have come to expect from him. But in the case of The Happening there is far more going on to get enjoyment out of, there are at least some intended moments of horror or mystery that somewhat work. But here it just misfires on almost every single note throughout the entire film; it comes off as laughable when it should be awe-inspiring (such as when we get told different descriptions of various different mystical creatures), it causes you to roll your eyes when you should be enthralled or amazed, and it makes you shake your ahead in disbelief of how the heck this movie was allowed to be filmed much less for people to pay to see it in on the big-screen (or on DVD for that matter).