okay, i like comic books, even though i haven't collected for a while. i like the language they speak, the cues they leave. this movie is written in their language, and if you speak it, certain things are obvious from the beginning. that's important because the movie divides its audience into two parts; those who can see all too clearly what's going on, and those who treat this like a normal movie. the weird thing is, this is a drama, it is reality, but the two or three primary causes for everything that happens are strictly comic book fare. what happens to the villain is a staple of every great batman comic; he gets carted off in the end to an asylum for the criminally insane. the evil that the hero discovers is right out of some news magazine nightmare about a serial killer, but the hero handles it by dashing into the situation in a cloak and astoundingly saving the day. yet while that's going on, you have the quiet, careful, meticulous direction of m. night shamaylan that we remember from the sixth sense , dividing up the moments into oppresive and gripping tick tocks of a clock. his direction was better suited to this movie; in fact i think the sixth sense was overrated. not everybody understands where he's coming from, and with a story like this, that's even further out there than tss was, you see it in audience reaction. nonetheless, if you've ever appreciated the dark cheesiness of a master villain like vincent price's abominable dr. phibes you'll see the important contribution to this film, and all film, that samuel l. jackson makes. picture the kid in the wheelchair from malcolm in the middle without the years of healthy social interaction, and his finger on the pulse of a phenomenon too real to seem anything but crazy, and driven to act out to crazy extremes as a result of it. introverts like this guy exist, you see them playing magic the gathering in bookstores, and though the movie is written in comic book language, the compelling dementia of the villain is still altogether there. what can i tell you; if what i'm saying makes any sense to you, you'll totally enjoy this movie. i was blown away. if you're not keyed into this dark side of fandom, you may need something a little more compromising. m. night has all my respect for taking a chance with this story, and in my opnion, succeeding. weird and good.