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M. Knight Shyamalan knows this movie stinks. He has to. Why else write a movie critic into the plot only to have him brutally eaten? Think of it as a pre-emptive strike.

The guy once called "the next Spielberg" has fallen from grace ... finally. After his hit Sixth Sense, he pushed audiences with Unbreakable, dared them with Signs and triple-dog-dared them with The Village. I enjoyed all four, and admired them for their challenging themes and his unmistakable talent. Lady in the Water, though, has pushed me too far. It's sloppy filmmaking and even sloppier writing. Shyamalan wrote the film as a bedtime story for his children. As a bedtime story, it works: you'll be asleep in no time at flat.

Cleveland Heep (Paul Giamati) is a super at a dive apartment complex called The Cove. He walks with a slouch, has a distinct stutter and is pained by his past. All this goes away when a strange girl appears in the complex pool. Naked and pale as a corpse, the girl takes refuge in Cleveland's house on the complex property. It's eventually discovered that she's bridged the gap between two dimensions and must be helped back to her world.

The girl's name is Story and I think the name is intentional: There may be no story in the story, but there's a Story in the story. She is played by Bryce Dallas Howard (The Village), who brings life to the character by blinking occasionally. Story is a Narf, some sort of full-grown pixie with no discernable skills or powers; X-Men flunkies have more talent. Story lives underneath the pool in a room with a purpose that's never really explained.

Narf's, we learn, are hunted when not in their world by Scrunts, grass-covered wolves that can lay flat on lawns. The movie never asks how they fight lawnmowers but nevermind. Scrunts are controlled by tree monkeys called Tartutics. Stay with me here: the Scrunts do not fear Tartutics when a Madame Narf is vulnerable. The Madame Narf can only be safe by returning to its world, the Blue World, by riding on the wings of the Great Eatlon, a golden falcon that comes to Earth to rescue Narfs. The only way to make the Great Eatlon appear is to first converse with a writer. Then a guild, interpreter, healer and guardian must stand their ground to make the Eatlon break through the clouds. Trust me, this is the real plot; I couldn't make this up. It pains me to write descriptions like this, but it serves as an explicit warning in case you feel compelled to see it.

Besides sounding like overheard dialogue from the Pokémon booth at the most recent Comic-Con convention, Lady in the Water is filled with characters that have no motivation whatsoever. They also do things that no human has ever done. When Cleveland wants to know the bedtime story of the Narf's he turns to a Chinese tenant who spends the entire movie explaining the story in such depth that it goes against all reason. Most people don't tell their loved ones stories in this kind of detail, but in Lady in the Water characters traverse stairs and hurdle language barriers to explain a story so complete that even the Narfs are taking notes.

What's sad is that you can feel talent bubbling to the surface. The gentle score is terrific. The cinematography seems to wander the apartment like a lost puppy; it gets us so close that occasionally you'll feel like paying rent. And Paul Giamatti, poor poor Paul Giamatti; he deserves an Oscar someday, but not for this.

M. Knight has some nerve to put audiences through this after they remained interested through Unbreakable, Signs and The Village. I would of rather him come to my house and club me in the face. At least then he's still a great director, just a violent one. But with Lady in the Water he's shown us he doesn't know when to stop.

I would rant more about his movie, and how I hated hated hated it, but I'm speechless from here on out. Internet Movie Database user Felixlocke isn't speechless though. Here's an excerpt of his thoughts:

"As the movie ended, all I could think about was my nephew Philip. When he was younger, during dinner or after, he used to delight in recounting some story or joke to all the adults sitting around the table. He would go on and on, and we would all indulge him because we wanted to encourage his youthful creativity. After 20 minutes or so, as our collective eyes would start to glaze over, one of us would have to gently suggest that he swiftly wrap things up%u2026because his story or joke had stopped making sense and quite frankly, we just couldn't listen anymore. That pretty much sums up my experience [with] Lady in the Water."

Ditto from me.