M. Night Shyamalan's 'Trap' Is Great Fun. Just Don't Think About It For More Than 10 Seconds.

A few thoughts on M. Night Shyamalan's 'Trap.'

M. Night Shyamalan’s latest film Trap has an irresistible premise: What if a concert was a trap to ensnare a serial killer?

In Trap, Josh Hartnett plays Cooper Adams, a family man who just wants his daughter, Riley (Ariel Donoghue), to have a great time at the wildly popular Lady Raven concert that all the kids are going to. Unbeknownst to almost everyone, Hartnett is also a serial killer known as the Butcher and has committed a rash of gruesome murders in the area. The police have somehow figured out that the Butcher is going to be at the Lady Raven concert but they only know a few of his identifying characteristics, so they hatch a plan to surround the arena and stop every white male in their 30s and 40s coming out of it. Cooper must use his wits to evade capture from the entirety of the local police force, all while trying to be still be a good dad.

Look, Trap has a lot of problems. Many of its characters speak in a stilted, over-the-top manner that has become customary of Shyamalan films (so much so that it’s even become a meme for this film). People make decisions that are baffling and strain credulity. Some of its climactic reveals make the rest of the film completely nonsensical in hindsight. And there are probably a few too many twists for the ending to be ultimately satisfying.

But despite all those issues (and they are considerable), I found myself appreciating the fact that there’s no one else making films like Shyamalan. The writer/director, who’s been at least partly self-financing his films since The Visit (2015), consistently hatches premises that meld the fantastical with the mundane. He’s also one of the only directors that’s able to get wide theatrical releases for movies that aren’t based off superhero comics or other existing IP.

What if your preacher/farmer father had to face off against aliens? What if you were secretly a superhero and didn’t know it? What if your kid was normal in every way except for the fact that he can see dead people? What if there was a beach that made you old? In each of these movies is not only the promise that there’s something beyond this world we can understand, but also a central performance of someone that must grapple with their inner demons and reconcile themselves to their new reality. Even if his movies aren’t always great, they pretty much always feature fun premises and actors making interesting decisions.

On that note, Hartnett is a revelation. Every single line, every mannerism, every micro-expression is perfectly calibrated. Cooper is a man trying to balance multiple sides of himself and has figured out how to make himself appear normal to strangers. But whenever he lets the mask slip, you see the dark and terrifying side of him that’s just underneath the surface. Hartnett has been largely under the radar for years now, spending his time taking on interesting roles in low- to medium-budget films. But with his appearance in last year’s Oppenheimer and now headlining Trap, I hope he gets many more opportunities to show off his acting chops to a broader audience.

As for the rest of the film, Shyamalan still proves himself capable or ratcheting up tension to nearly unbearable levels. There are a handful of sequences, particularly towards the end, that demonstrate Shyamalan’s Hithcockian tendencies and they are riveting. Shyamalan understands that the audience needs to spend its time in anticipation of the moment and that’s where he chooses to hold us.

I saw someone on Letterboxd compare this movie to the Hitman videogames and I think it’s apt. In those games, you play a bald, imposing assassin who must infiltrate elaborate settings using a combination of outlandish disguises and brute force. There’s a joy when you figure out how to dress as the butler, make your way through the gala, lace the target’s coffee with rat poison, then carve a path through the labyrinthine basement past a myriad of armed guards. Of course, it makes absolutely no sense that a person in your position could evade detection in such a manner, but it sure was a awesome when you barely made it out alive!

So it is with Trap, a film that is a blast to watch and that completely falls apart upon further scrutiny. Don’t let that stop you from having a good time, though.

---

Google’s AI Ad Blunder

I’m not ashamed to admit it: I cry during Google commercials sometimes.

Google’s advertising has showcased their technology in interesting ways, but also told grounded stories of people trying to achieve relatable tasks. They’re also often a brilliant example of how minimalism in advertising can be a huge strength. Just check out this classic ad from 2009:

More recently, I was moved by this recent ad that shows off an accessibility feature called Guided Frame. It gets me every time!

But their latest ad touting their Gemini AI technology has been received incredibly poorly. In the ad, a father describes how his daughter looks up to Olympic medalist Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. The father than asks Google’s Gemini to help his daughter write a letter to Sydney.

Unlike its other ads where Google’s tech is used to augment or extend people’s capabilities, this ad showed off how Google could replace people’s humanity with something that came from a machine. Use Google to research a letter to your biggest sports hero? Cool! Use Google to write a letter to your biggest sports hero? Gross.

The backlash has been swift. The video currently has 14k dislikes (vs. 1.4k likes) and Google has actually pulled the ad, acknowledging that people hate this thing:

“We believe that AI can be a great tool for enhancing human creativity, but can never replace it. Our goal was to create an authentic story celebrating Team USA,” Google spokeswoman Alana Beale said. “While the ad tested well before airing, given the feedback, we have decided to phase the ad out of our Olympics rotation.”

I think this ad could very well be the canary in the coal mine. Every major tech company is currently in the process of shoving generative AI into all its features at great expense to themselves and to the environment. While some users will undoubtedly find a subset of these features useful, I suspect we’re only beginning to see the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the general public’s backlash towards the AI-ification of everything.

---

Other Stuff David Chen Has Made

• If you haven’t yet, be sure to check out Tansy Gardam’s write-up of WTF happened with Zack Snyder’s original Rebel Moon movies. Tansy and I are currently making our way through Snyder’s directors cuts (God help us all) and I’m hoping we’ll have some more coverage of those films to share with you soon.

• [PAID ONLY] On my personal Patreon page, I’ve started to record a series of podcasts about what’s going on in US politics. We did an episode covering Joe Biden’s decision to step down and another one discussing the week that followed. The feedback to these has been really positive so it’s probably something we’ll continue to do through the fall election.

• Over on Decoding TV, we covered Apple TV+’s Presumed Innocent and I compared the classic 1990 film to the TV show.

• On A Cast of Kings, we’re wrapping up our coverage of House of the Dragon tonight. Here’s our discussion of last week’s episode, which was pretty great!

• On The Filmcast, we discussed Deadpool & Wolverine. You can catch my review right here.