Here's the basic premise of the movie: A young boy is terrorized by ghosts that
only he can see. He confides this secret with a child-psychiatrist who begins
to try to help the child. That's the premise to this movie.

The first thing that I thought when I saw the previews to this were "This could
be good, but it's way too easy for them to screw it up." I wrote it off as a
Hollywood blunder before going to see it, as I do with most other movies. Often
I'm right, because Hollywood screws up more often than it gets things right. Only
very rarely do they make the attempt to find good actors and good scripts to make
truly entertaining, if not satisfying, movies.

The Sixth Sense is one of those movies.

I've given you the basic premise, which is good and easy to screw up. It's
fortunate, then, that the honchos at Hollywood didn't mess with this movie. Bruce
Willis plays a child-psychiatrist who tries to help the young Cole, an eight
year old boy who sees ghosts. Willis' character is haunted by ghosts of his own,
however, in the form of a former patient who suffered from the exact same symptoms
which Cole suffers from and Willis was not able to cure. The movie opens with Willis
being shot by said former-patient, now an adult, who then proceeds to shoot himself.
The following fall Willis' character meets up with the young Cole, and the story
escalates from there.

This movie was much better than I had originally anticipated. I had heard good things,
but I still never expected too much. The plot to the movie was excellent, moving along
at a perfect pace. It moved at such a pace that you never thought "When is it going to
be over?" or "What the hell just happened?" It's not too slow, and it's not too fast.

And let's not forget the acting. What is a good script without good actors to execute it?
Fortunately all of the actors here were amazing. Bruce Willis showed us that he can do
dramatic acting when we saw him in Armeggedon. In this movie he displays his skill even
more deftly. He is able to portray emotional pain as well as sincerity and genuine concern.

The child actor, however, who plays Cole is amazing. This eight year old kid will go
places if he wants to. The boy outshines every other actor in this movie. Willis is good,
but this kid is great! If you see this movie for no other reason, than see it for this
boy's performance. It's amazing.

That's not to say the movie is without scares, though. On the contrary, there are many
moments in this movie where you'll be jumping out of your seat. The scares in this movie
are a good mixture of the Blair Witch-style scare where you can't see what the boy sees and
and where you can actually see what the boy sees. To put it in less complicated terms, the
movie uses a mix of psychological scares and visual ones. And they all work.

This movie is spooky. It's spooky, moody, eerie, and many other adjectives which I can't
think of right now. Also, the plot and story are amazingly well-thought and surprisingly
well-executed. And the acting is great as well. It's by far one of the best movies to
come out during the summer of '99.

Video Re-review
**** out of 5

Nothing to say. It's just as scary, just as interesting, just as smart, and just as engaging
a movie on the small-screen as on the big-screen. Rent it or buy it, who cares. Just
watch it. It's more than worth your time. [Movie Review List]