M. Night's Legacy
The Sixth Sense
Most of the world pointed at this film and declared it an all-time classic, pretty much the moment it was released. I saw it at the theater with some university friends. It was scary. When I went to bed that night, I had trouble falling asleep remembering its unsettling images.
There had never been a horror movie with the same atmosphere as The Sixth Sense, and there hasn't been one since. Rumor has it that Night's original vision for the film was more experimental - he wanted the ghosts to remain unseen. His major corporate studio likely nixed that artsy idea.
Unbreakable
Besides Batman Returns by Tim Burton, Unbreakable is the only film I can think of that followed up a blockbuster with a superior arthouse piece. Somehow this movie works on every level, managing to be unsettling and uplifting and sometimes downright horrifying.
I will go out on a limb and say this is Night's best film. The acting is so genuine it breaks your heart, and it's fascinating to watch such a bizarre story unwind slowly enough to make perfect sense. The plot twist is masterful, that's two in a row.
(Note - sorry, I'm not including Signs. I don't like Signs enough to give it the respect it probably deserves - it did very well at the box office and got good reviews - so I will skip. To say something nice about it, it was fun to watch at the theater, the opening credits are amazing, and the acting is great.)
The Village
In my opinion this movie is underrated. The media made fun of it for what they perceived to be a dumb plot twist, and felt cheated for not getting the monster money-shot they apparently craved.
But this movie is beautiful and artsy and hopeful. The cinematography is drop-dead gorgeous, Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, and Adrien Brody give shining performances, and the supporting actors (some of them big stars) are solid. I think the plot twist is kind of cool, and the music is lovely.
Lady In The Water
Usually seen as the film where it all started to go sideways for Night. Almost maniacally-scathing reviews from most major critics. One started off his review with, "Has M. Night Shyamalan lost his god damned mind?" (it was shocking to hear a mainstream journalist use language like that back then, even in print, believe it or not).
This movie is batshit crazy, and its brilliance comes from the acting workshops put on by Bryce Dallas Howard and Paul Giamatti, performances so strong that about halfway in you realize you're actually starting to take the nonsense storyline seriously.
There's more to this movie though, I think. Seems like Night was not amused by the pot shots taken against The Village (which is understandable, considering how underrated it was and how hard he must have worked on it), and decided to tell the critics exactly what he thought of them.
This includes having a film critic for a character used as a sacrificial lamb for Night's agitation, Night casting himself in the film as a genius author and unassumingly-humble martyr who wrote a book that will someday bring peace to all of mankind, and late movie plot twists that descend into absurdity before they're even a third of the way through unfolding.
Batshit crazy, but not that bad. And the scene with the green monster and the dog door, for my money, is still one of the best actually-earned jump scares around. I watched that film on DVD with some friends, and I literally jumped in my seat at that part, and it was easy to tell that the others in the room had also been shocked by the scene. It still gets me to this day when I watch it.
The Happening
Yeah, this movie is pretty bad. It wouldn't even be worth mentioning except for two things. One, it's the last Night film that really looks like a Night film. I would say everything from The Sixth Sense to The Happening all have a similar look about them.
The second thing is, there's a rumor that The Happening is bad on purpose, that Night was trying to make a good-looking version of a genuinely bad B horror movie. If this is the case (and I honestly don't know if it is or not), then it's kind of brilliant. Still doesn't make it very fun to sit through.
The Rest (Conclusion)
From here on out, Night seems to have decided to spend his golden years being a bizarre mainstream version of Herschell Gordon Lewis (minus Lewis' unique talent for presenting gore with deceptively-simple artfulness). I don't know why, but Kevin Smith seems to be doing the same thing. Total schlockmeister stuff that's only halfway amusing (to me, at least - some folks are probably crazy about it).
That's okay, let him have fun. Because I think that, even if you only consider The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and The Village, Night has earned his place as one of the most groundbreaking and effective horror/fantasy directors of all time.
Most of the world pointed at this film and declared it an all-time classic, pretty much the moment it was released. I saw it at the theater with some university friends. It was scary. When I went to bed that night, I had trouble falling asleep remembering its unsettling images.
There had never been a horror movie with the same atmosphere as The Sixth Sense, and there hasn't been one since. Rumor has it that Night's original vision for the film was more experimental - he wanted the ghosts to remain unseen. His major corporate studio likely nixed that artsy idea.
Unbreakable
Besides Batman Returns by Tim Burton, Unbreakable is the only film I can think of that followed up a blockbuster with a superior arthouse piece. Somehow this movie works on every level, managing to be unsettling and uplifting and sometimes downright horrifying.
I will go out on a limb and say this is Night's best film. The acting is so genuine it breaks your heart, and it's fascinating to watch such a bizarre story unwind slowly enough to make perfect sense. The plot twist is masterful, that's two in a row.
(Note - sorry, I'm not including Signs. I don't like Signs enough to give it the respect it probably deserves - it did very well at the box office and got good reviews - so I will skip. To say something nice about it, it was fun to watch at the theater, the opening credits are amazing, and the acting is great.)
The Village
In my opinion this movie is underrated. The media made fun of it for what they perceived to be a dumb plot twist, and felt cheated for not getting the monster money-shot they apparently craved.
But this movie is beautiful and artsy and hopeful. The cinematography is drop-dead gorgeous, Bryce Dallas Howard, Joaquin Phoenix, and Adrien Brody give shining performances, and the supporting actors (some of them big stars) are solid. I think the plot twist is kind of cool, and the music is lovely.
Lady In The Water
Usually seen as the film where it all started to go sideways for Night. Almost maniacally-scathing reviews from most major critics. One started off his review with, "Has M. Night Shyamalan lost his god damned mind?" (it was shocking to hear a mainstream journalist use language like that back then, even in print, believe it or not).
This movie is batshit crazy, and its brilliance comes from the acting workshops put on by Bryce Dallas Howard and Paul Giamatti, performances so strong that about halfway in you realize you're actually starting to take the nonsense storyline seriously.
There's more to this movie though, I think. Seems like Night was not amused by the pot shots taken against The Village (which is understandable, considering how underrated it was and how hard he must have worked on it), and decided to tell the critics exactly what he thought of them.
This includes having a film critic for a character used as a sacrificial lamb for Night's agitation, Night casting himself in the film as a genius author and unassumingly-humble martyr who wrote a book that will someday bring peace to all of mankind, and late movie plot twists that descend into absurdity before they're even a third of the way through unfolding.
Batshit crazy, but not that bad. And the scene with the green monster and the dog door, for my money, is still one of the best actually-earned jump scares around. I watched that film on DVD with some friends, and I literally jumped in my seat at that part, and it was easy to tell that the others in the room had also been shocked by the scene. It still gets me to this day when I watch it.
The Happening
Yeah, this movie is pretty bad. It wouldn't even be worth mentioning except for two things. One, it's the last Night film that really looks like a Night film. I would say everything from The Sixth Sense to The Happening all have a similar look about them.
The second thing is, there's a rumor that The Happening is bad on purpose, that Night was trying to make a good-looking version of a genuinely bad B horror movie. If this is the case (and I honestly don't know if it is or not), then it's kind of brilliant. Still doesn't make it very fun to sit through.
The Rest (Conclusion)
From here on out, Night seems to have decided to spend his golden years being a bizarre mainstream version of Herschell Gordon Lewis (minus Lewis' unique talent for presenting gore with deceptively-simple artfulness). I don't know why, but Kevin Smith seems to be doing the same thing. Total schlockmeister stuff that's only halfway amusing (to me, at least - some folks are probably crazy about it).
That's okay, let him have fun. Because I think that, even if you only consider The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and The Village, Night has earned his place as one of the most groundbreaking and effective horror/fantasy directors of all time.
I love the way you sing, okay? I fucked up my whole life because of the way you sing. - Before Midnight
Comments
Samuel L Jackson is one of the biggest whiny little bitches to ever hit the big screen in this, and this whole story because Sam want's to be more significant then he really isn't.
And then Bruce Willis isn't even a driving force in the story, just a reactor to all of Sam's nonsense.
Just a lot of boredom and sad reveal
0/10 for this one
It was the cow...
Bruce Willis is just a regular guy trying to have a regular life, but SLJ comes a long, all broken, but instead of dealing with it, put Willis through hell cause why? SLJ's character just can't handle his own life.
I found the whole thing done badly, but it's also one of the most fucked up stories of all time
Imagine if this was some comic book. A villain decides to go for the glory one last time, but needs a hero, so he tries to cultivate some regular guy, but the regular guy really isn't in love with the glory of his own job, has almost no ego, he just loves his family, that's it
Like I said, this movie is just so offensive and fucked up
It was the cow...
Comparing to HGL? What? They couldn't be different directors
The early stuff though? Great. Unbreakable is one of the best films ever made
"It's cool to hate Bay."
You guys are driving me nuts.
I liked Lady In The Water though.
Wide Awake suffers from a distinct lack of a James Newton-Howard score, Dana Delaney and Denis Leary have a rather interesting chemistry. Not really fodder for those that are horror-centric, but a really good movie nonetheless.
Unbreakable caught my eye right from the first scene and remains one of my favorite "comic book" movies, even if there is no comic upon which it was based.
The Village is problematic, being both one of the best and worst of his films. My daughter and I caught it in the theater on first release, and we came out shaking out heads: the "Shyamalan Twist" is when the movie stops being about Phoenix's character and starts being about Howard... which was about half way through. The ending was predictable but not in a bad way. One of the best soundtracks in his films, it stands alone as a piece one can listen to on the mp3 player/phone/whatever is one's device of preference.
The Happening, The Last Airbender and After Earth all seem to be affected by cocaine, or something... there was a sense in the 80's that many bad decisions were fueled by white powder thinking, and these all bear some of the hallmarks; cloudy reasoning in the scripts, unclear dialog, and Things Happening Because. They also all seem a little bloated, as if throwing more money at the production would fix everything. Of the three, The Happening is one IMHO most worthy of study and revisiting, as it has such horrible performances by the leads (one of whom I normally enjoy) and really interesting performances by... everyone else. Almost wish the film would be remade with different leads, and leave everything else in.
The Visit was a magnificent return to form, all the hallmarks of a MNS film are present, subdued and tense simultaneously, language is just as important as the visual and the performances really catch lightning. He works very well with children.
Split... which we all now know is a sequel, but for me, before we see Bruce, once again the music of James Newton-Howard comes up, and in that moment I knew what was going on. I got chills. McEvoy makes this, no question in my mind, one of the best performances of his already rather stellar career. (And in looking at the Wiki article, I liked that notion of it being part of the "narrative" of the prior film as opposed to a "universe.")
Devil was as nice an homage to Rod Serling as one is going to find, and both of the Stuart Little films are good clean fun (yeah, he only wrote those, but still).