With M. Night Shyamalan's latest, it's viewers who'll feel like they're caught in a "Trap."

A trap of nonsense and implausibility, mostly. Shyamalan has made some blunders before — where to even begin? — but "Trap" is beamed in from another planet altogether, and he asks audiences to go along for the ride even though at no point does he establish any grounding for his characters or the situations in which they find themselves.

Josh Hartnett stars as Cooper, a Philadelphia father taking his tweenage daughter Riley (Ariel Donoghue) to see her favorite pop star, Lady Raven (Shyamalan's daughter Saleka), in concert. Except things are not quite as they seem: Cooper notices an inordinate amount of police at the concert, a half-dozen deep at every exit, and soon learns that the concert itself is a massive sting operation set up to catch an on-the-loose serial killer, known as "The Butcher," who is said to be at the show.

To make matters thicker, Cooper is the Butcher.

It's an admittedly intriguing premise, and it seemingly riffs on the urban legend surrounding Phil Collins' "In the Air Tonight," in which Collins allegedly saw a man watch another man drown without helping him, proceeded to invite the man to his concert, and at the song's climatic moment shone a spotlight on him, exposing him to all. It was one of those pre-internet fables that somehow made its way to everyone — a version of it even ended up in Eminem's "Kim" — and while it wasn't true, it still took on a life of its own.

In reality, "Trap's" premise doesn't hold much water: sooo, the Feds are willingly placing a serial killer known as "The Butcher" inside a room with 20,000 people? What did that do to the show's insurance policy? But Shyamalan is unconcerned with any recognizable versions of reality, as he proves at every turn: Cooper freely wanders the building during the show, sneaking off to the bathroom to check in on his latest victim via livestream, and then befriends a T-shirt vendor who takes him to the merch storage room. He listens in as cops plan their takedown of him, stages an explosion at a vendor stand and at one point ends up on the building's roof, all while his daughter is comfortable at her seat, enjoying the show.

Things only get sillier from there, and that's not even counting Kid Cudi's laugh out loud cameo as a platinum blonde wig sporting pop guru known as "The Thinker." (Shyamalan has an oddly detached view of modern pop music; this is the guy who named a rapper Mid-Sized Sedan in "Old.") It's partially meant to be silly — it has to be, right? — but there's no suspense to be mined, because there's no rhyme or reason to Shyamalan's scattered screenplay.

There needs to be an understanding of the mechanics of a situation the characters on screen find themselves in, both physically and emotionally, in order to create any sense of tension for viewers. Where is the nearest door, what is this person capable of, what are the stakes of this scene? But Shyamalan keeps making up the rules as he goes along and writing his way out of jams with unconvincing outs. He's not subverting audience expectations, he's continually tossing out the rule book.

He never even gives us much on Cooper: we're told he's been up to his Butchering for seven years, but there's little given to the psychology of a guy who's a vicious, on-the-lam serial killer but also moonlights as a happy father and husband (Alison Pill plays his wife, Rachel).

Hartnett, who is enjoying a resurgence in recent years after appearing in a series of Guy Ritchie thrillers (as well as, ahem, "Oppenheimer"), doesn't give much depth or layering to Cooper, and he seems as unsure as the screenplay is as to whether or not he's supposed to be the hero of this story.

"Trap" is a silly jumble of half-ideas that confounds at every turn. Shyamalan usually waits for a twist ending to topple his movies, but this time he's off the rails right from the very start.

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'TRAP'

Grade: D

MPA rating: PG-13 (for some violent content and brief strong language)

Running time: 1:45

How to watch: Now in theaters

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