As widely reported, this movie’s bad, but there’s something very strange going on with explicit discussions about narrative within the narrative itself that makes it almost interesting. We’ve got one character named Story and another character who appears to be, if not quoting, than speaking in the style of Story. I suspect the goal here is to highlight the fact that this is supposed to be in the style of a bedtime story, not necessarily a three-act film (a structure Shyamalan’s clearly not crazy about, given the one-act nature of Unbreakable). Certainly, the section of the movie in which the characters begin taking McKee-style advice is the one in which things feel most clearly wrong, which is almost certainly the point, but I’m not sure the alternative narrative structure the film presents is significantly more compelling. I certainly have nothing wrong with attacking traditional narrative structure (which is really only effective at outlining one particular approach that tends to work, but, as with any system, can lead to an attitude that there are no other approaches), but I’m not sure the alternate “and then some stuff happens” approach we get here is really a viable option.