Okay, I admit it - this topic is fucking boring me more than The Last Airbender, so I decided to cut the shit, and finally end this so I can move on to something more interesting, like staple removers (which is, for real, my next topic).
That's alright, though, because discussing what I hate about M. Night Shyamalan doesn't have to take up as many parts as what I love about him, because so many of his films, post-Unbreakable have the similar elements that make me hate them. So let's get to it, shall we?
First of all, Shyamalan's ego begins to take over at this point. I suppose that will happen when everyone is calling you "the next Hitchcock". Not only is it gratifying to be compared to one of the greatest film directors of all time, but that last part, "cock", is surely subconscious fuel for the male ego. These comparisons were drawn mostly because of Shyamalan's tendency for surprise endings, although Hitchcock was only famous for surprise endings because of Psycho mostly. I haven't seen his entire library of movies, but the ones I have seen did not have surprise endings. What they did have was perfect pacing and incredibly suspenseful moments. The scene in Rear Window when Jimmy Stewart sends his girlfriend to investigate the murderer's apartment across the street, with the murderer about to catch her, is one of the most suspenseful moments in movie history.
At some point, back when he made The Sixth Sense, Shyamalan seemed to understand how to create a suspenseful scene. Now, though, it seems like all he knows is how to come up with a neat concept, and... that's about it. I remember when The Village was about to come out, I was actually kind of looking forward to it. The concept seemed neat - a small, roughly 16th century town makes a pact with spooky forest dwellers, which is broken when one of their own trespasses into the woods. Okay, sure, I'll watch that. Then the twist happens, and it so absurd as to be laughable: they were actually living in the modern times, and the elders dressed like spooks to scare the youth from trying to leave the village. Horrible.
Then there was the climax on Signs. Graham's (Mel Gibson) house is invaded by an alien, and in a moment of desperation, he remembers his wife's enigmatic dying words: "Tell Merrill to swing away." So he tells his brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), to swing away. Merrill grabs a baseball bat, and starts wailing away at the alien, who just take it like total puss. Then, completely by accident, he knocks over one of many glasses of water Graham's son has been leaving around the house, and it burns the alien like acid. Really? This is the big solution the entire movie was leading up to? Beating the alien with a baseball bat and melting it with water? And if the aliens were fatally allergic to water, why the hell would they invade a planet that is almost completely MADE OF WATER! Also, not to get too super science on you, but sentient life, as we know it, is impossible to develop without water. When NASA sends probes to find new planets that can sustain life, one of the things they look for, first and foremost, is water (ok, and also a sun, but you know what I mean). One more thing: why are aliens almost always nude in these movies? They can create intergalactic spaceships, but clothes somehow elude them. Wait... isn't that a Seinfeld bit?
Then there's Lady in the Water... jesus, is this a horrible movie. Say what you will about Signs and The Village, at those were kind of watchable, but Lady in the Water was just a fucking mess. Shyamalan says that the movie is based off a bedtime story he tells his kids, and as sleepy as it made me, I can believe it. The movie is about a groundskeeper named Cleveland Heep, one of the worst names in a movie this side of Appalonia Jane, who finds that a mysterious young woman named Story, played by Bryce Dallas Howard, has been living in his pool. By the way, I stand corrected: Story is the stupidest name I've ever seen. He finds out that she's some kind of water nymph who somehow washed up into our world and needs help getting back to her's, before evil, dog-like creatures get her. Cleveland than goes on to recruit people that live in his apartment building that are all totally unlikable and annoying, to help Story out. After that, it gets fuzzy, because by this point in the movie, my rage, apathy, and boredom completely clouded my senses, and before I knew it, the end credits were rolling. What pissed me off the most about this film was why, in the name of love, would Shyamalan think that some bullshit bedtime story he tells his kids to make them shut the fuck up and GO TO SLEEP, would be an awesome movie??
Then came The Happening, which is about an epidemic of suicides that infect the East coast of the United States. My early theory was that the people were committing suicide because they had just watched Lady in the Water, but I turned out to be wrong. It was something much stupider: in a form of natural defense against mankind's pollution of Earth, all the plants were expelling some kind of airborne toxin that infects a person's brain and makes them kill themselves, proving once again that Mother Nature can be a total bitch.
I need to take a moment here to point out just how stupid this title is, by the way. "The Happening"? Really? Normally, after one finishes a script, and can't figure out a good title because the plot isn't focused enough to provide one naturally, that is taken as a bad sign. I can see it now - M. Night finishes the last page and he's thinking, "Okay, the movie is about a mysterious epidemic of suicides... so I should call it... Suicide Epidemic? No. Earth's Revenge? No, that'll spoil my clever twist. The People Who Stopped Living and Became Mixed-up Suicidals? No, too long. Let's see... what is happening in the script... what is happening to the characters... happening... happening... hey, I know! The Happening - because, in the movie, things are happening! Yesss!"
This movie wasn't as awful as Lady in the Water, but that's like saying dry dog shit is better than wet dog shit. Shit is shit, and a bad movie is a bad movie, the only difference is one will leave a worse stain on you soul than the other. The only thing I found interesting about this movie is that, for the first time ever in a Shyamalan film, it is incredibly gory. As crude as it may sound, that was enough to keep my interest, although the movie eventually peters out and has a bullshit happy ending.
Last, but not least, we have The Last Airbender. Oooooh my, where do I start? First of all, don't judge the Nickelodeon series from which the movie is based off of from this shitty film. That series is actually really good. It has a lot of well choreographed action sequences, lovable characters, and hilarious moments, mixed up with truly tense, dramatic moments. It's an amazing adventure through a magical land where being able to control the elements is as normal as breathing. So, in essence, Avatar: The Last Airbender is absolutely antithetical to everything M. Night Shyamalan has ever made. So, of course, why not have him direct it???
What Shyamalan produces from an otherwise great series, is a completely uninspired, insipidly dull, heartless piece of shit movie. He has a lot of the imagery from the series completely right, but the characters are totally wrong. Ang is a boring little shit, played by an child actor who, like most child actors, completely sucks at acting. All the other characters are just as uninteresting, mostly because we don't really get a chance to get to know them. The movie just churns along, the characters traveling from place to place, with little to know time to develop them. Also, the movie's story is mostly told via voice over, which is always the red flag of a shitty script. The number one, number one, rule of directing a film is: show the story, don't tell the story. Filmmaking is, first and foremost, a visual media, and a talented director is capable of utilizing visuals to tell his story with little to no dialogue. Don't get me wrong, dialogue is important, but only as a means of developing the plot. An entire movie could be silent, and yet still be totally engaging - I know, I've seen it done. I've watched plenty of silent films that are absolutely amazing. Once upon a time, Shyamalan used to know this, but The Last Airbender makes me think he either forgot it, or he was so desperate for a paycheck, he just didn't give a fuck about making a good movie, so long as it makes money in the box office.
I think that's what I hate about Shyamalan most of all: the lack of passion that he displayed so much of in The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable. It's as if his passion for filmmaking got replaced with a constant need to reaffirm to himself how brilliant he is, by putting more brainpower into coming up with original concepts, instead of ways to makes these concepts actually work. The problem with a movie about a village of neo-Luddites who have decided to hide from the modern world by making their kids believe they are trapped by forest creatures is neat, but Shyamalan is incapable of making it work as a movie. The concept of plants forcing people to kill themselves is neat, but Shyamalan is, once again, incapable of making it work as a movie.
It's a real shame, because as you read in parts 1 and 2 of this saga, I really thought a lot of Shyamalan as a director, and to see how far he's sunk is a little heartbreaking. It sucks that the man responsible for a movie as great as The Sixth Sense is now so synonymous with garbage movies that when his name flashes on a movie screen, entire audiences groan with disgust (I've been in a movie theater when this has happened, it was quite hilarious). I really hope that he pulls himself out of this nosedive, but I feel like it's much too late at this point. Unless he writes a sequel to one of his more successful films, like Unbreakable (which, rumor has it, he plans to do), I don't see many more films in this guy's future, which might be for the best.
Fuck M. Night Shyamalan.
And fuck Lady in the Water while I'm at it.
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