Trap Had A Hidden Agenda That I Believe M. Night Shyamalan Screwed Up

I saw the movie Trap today with my pal, Eddie. He's a movie guy as well and we've been looking to collab on a review for a bit. I had seen Twisters, he had seen Longlegs, I'm not a Marvel Universe guy, so no Deadpool/Wolverine, so we eventually settled on Trap. 

We had a fun time, including showing the best way to butter popcorn.

But after the movie, we had somewhat clashing takes on what we just witnessed.

SPOILERS BELOW THE MOVIE REVIEW

I'm an M. Night Shyamalan fan. I really liked The Sixth Sense, The Village, Signs, and more. But MNS is known for his twists at the end of movies. And while Trap certainly has numerous attempts at it, something stuck out to me very early in this movie. During the intro they did a "starring" bit that was a bit long. MNS himself is in all of his movies. I won't hate on that. I'd probably do the same, but I did notice that not only was someone else with the last night Night Shyamalan was in it, but also had original songs by Saleka Night Shyamalan. At the time, I didn't think too much of it, but after about 30 minutes it was clear…this was a Saleka Night Shyamalan promotional movie. 

This movie takes place at a concert, so that makes sense. Give his daughter that role. She's been releasing music since 2020 to limited success. Her Dad is a big-wig movie director who has his own unique style. She is talented and classically good looking, but the dots haven't connected where she's made it big in an industry that it extremely hard to do so. 

So what does her Dad do? Cast her in a movie where a pop star sings basically her entire album in front of a sold out arena. And you may be thinking I'm exaggerating, but the movie has FOURTEEN songs by Saleka Night Shyamalan. 

This movie was her acting debut and clear as day to me it was not about how good this movie was (it was not good, I gave it a 3.8/10), but it was about launching Saleka Night Shyamalan's career. Her music was beaten over our heads for over an hour. It wasn't bad, I'm not going to lie. She is talented. But this was the purpose of the movie. It wasn't to deliver another M. Night Classic. It was to get his daughter into Hollywood.

Where he screwed up was putting those credits/intros first as I probably wouldn't have suspected all that if I didn't see it on the silver screen moments after Nicole Kidman welcomed me to the theatre.

As far as the quality of the actual movie, I really did not like it. Eddie made a great retort when he pointed out I was never bored. I've been put on a group text with Eddie, Tommy Smokes, Jeff D. Lowe, and Hubbs who have all seen it and were are all having a fun time sharing our experiences. Tommy said that most of the theatre was laughing at parts that were supposed to be serious and that was very much like our theatre. It's an escape movie, but there is such a comedy of errors by law enforcement it blows by the border of absurd. 

They've set it up where there is potential for a sequel that I will not likely see. And while I didn't like the movie overall, I was entertained and Josh Hartnett was good. My score of 3.8/10 stands, but at least this was memorable.