I love shit like that. It's like catnip to me.
I love it when authors claim they're changing the world and breaking new ground because you can find pretty quickly what formulas they're using and who they're cribbing from. There's also this Dan Brown Sequel Generator that's pretty fun to play with.
Also, apropos of nothing, I kind of liked Lady in the Water, and I'll watch the whole damn thing every time it comes on TV. It's the kind of story that should have worked, at least on paper, and would only get made as a movie when someone with the balls and ego and lack of awareness of M. Night Shyamalan decided to go for it. Which is just another way of saying, it's a story that really doesn't lend itself to easy categories or influences. That doesn't stop the movie from being a huge heaping pile of crap, but, hey, points for originality.
