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On the surface, Lady In The Water is about a sea nymph (Bryce Dallas Howard) who materialises in a swimming pool. Look deeper and you'll see the story of filmmaker M Night Shyamalan drowning in a bog of his own creative juices. Paul Giamatti emerges heroically unscathed as a world-weary caretaker, bringing a touch of credibility to a script that strives for the weight of Â鶹ԼÅÄric mythology but instead achieves a level of density that would make Â鶹ԼÅÄr Simpson blush.

Where The Sixth Sense was watertight and bristling with tension, this 'thriller' is a metaphorical sieve. The reason why the aquatic deity slopes onto land is something Shyamalan struggles to justify while getting her back to The Blue World leads to even more implausible and tedious complications. Yes, you will be magically transported to another world - The Land of Nod.

"DROWNS IN ITS OWN CREATIVE JUICES"

Instead of unfolding naturally, the plot is spooned out in pieces of dialogue. Shyamalan enforces his trademark wide-eyes and whispering for cardboard characters who debate endlessly about nymphs, "narfs" and "scrunts" (mythical creatures whose real purpose seems to be to get their writer out of dead-end scenarios). All we can safely decipher is that The Blue World is a place where everything stops making sense. Shyamalan even underlines the shortcomings of his script by referencing the tenets of mythmaking; calling the nymph 'Story' and having Bob Balaban play a film critic who tries to predict her fate. On the upside, there are some laughs to be had, albeit not always in the right places. A resounding plop.