James McAvoy has you squirming in M Night Shyamalan’s new psychothriller Split

REVIEW: Split, a wildly mercurial abduction psycho-thriller, is clever enough to cover its dodgy tracks. You will be led astray before you realise.

SPLIT (M)

Director: M. Night Shyamalan (The Sixth Sense)

Starring: James McAvoy, Anya Taylor-Joy, Betty Buckley, Jessica Sula, Haley Lu Richardson

Rating: Three stars

Beware the man in two (dozen) minds

IT does not really matter that Split is one dumb movie.

What does matter is that this wildly mercurial abduction psycho-thriller is clever enough to cover its dodgy tracks when it counts.

You will be led well astray before you can do anything about it.

The key to a kooky-creepy old time comes from a wacky parcel of performances, all being unwrapped on the fly by the same actor.

Even if you do stop caring about the movie itself — and being directed by schlocky twist merchant M. Night Shyamalan, you will be invited to do so repeatedly — you will remain riveted by the highly-strung highwire act pulled off by James McAvoy.

The latter-day X-Men star isn’t just chipping away at the one character here. He’s actually playing 23 of them. And what’s more, he has the improvisational skills and established range to do justice to every single one.

Why all the dexterity, you ask? Well, all 23 roles are hiding underneath the psychological umbrella of a dude with a severe split-personality disorder.

Let’s refer to him as Dennis, if only because that is what his long-suffering therapist, Dr Fletcher (Betty Buckley), calls him.

James McAvoy is known as Dennis to his therapist Dr Karen Fletcher (played by Betty Buckley). Picture: Linda Kallerus / Universal Pictures / AP

Inside Dennis’ colourful collection of identities — which range from a Kanye-worshipping 9-year-old boy to a prissy elderly schoolmarm — there is a pecking order that leaves some personas dominant over others.

James McAvoy’s 23 characters reveal a severe-split-personality disorder that will keep you riveted. Picture: Universal Pictures / AP

James McAvoy’s performance is worth paying the cinema admission fee alone and will scare you until the end. Picture: Universal Pictures / AP

One has the makings of a serial killer. Or indeed, might already be one. As the film moves on, it will be possible to get a definitive ruling on the matter, as Dennis is holding three teenage girls hostage at an undisclosed underground location.

Go all that basic info? Good. The plotting of Split — which is riddled with red herrings and rank inconsistencies — isn’t really the reason to be watching.

If you are still squirming in your seat by the end, it is all due to the manic paces McAvoy keeps putting himself through from scene to scene.

While most actors would lose a limb to land a role that gives them so much to do, few would stand a chance of hitting the immaculately insane energy levels maintained by McAvoy from start to finish.

As a result, nobody else in the cast really stands a chance of being noticed, aside from young British rising star Anya Taylor-Joy, picking up where she left off in last year’s wonderful chiller The Witch.

Anya Taylor-Joy, left, and James McAvoy, right, in a scene from horror thriller Split. Picture: John Baer / Universal Pictures / AP