M. Night Shyamalan: Rise and Fall

[Black Narcissus]

I caught Unbreakable the other day and it's one of those films that comes on and I just have to finish it all the way through. I can't for the life of me remember another director rising so quickly and falling from grace even harder. He made some films that I personally think are absolutely great. Hell, I even quite liked The Village.

When did ya'll start to get tire of his films? Lady In The Water for me, but I also remember forcing myself to like Signs.

I often forget he was oscar nominated at one point.

Unbreakable and The Sixth Sense are up there with some of the best stuff to come out from the late 90s early 00s.

The Visit looks awful.

In a way...I'm still hoping for a comeback.
'

I look at my red hands and my mean face... and I wonder 'bout that man that's gone so wrong.-Every former M.Night Fan

[YT]TN2s10c8WGY[/YT]

 

[Fallen Angel]

You high son?

 

[Black Narcissus]

You high son?

Bloody fantastic.

Thanks for that.

 

[DCW]

To this day I defend The Village, I think it's a great movie.

 

[Black Narcissus]

To this day I defend The Village, I think it's a great movie.

The amount of great actors in that is odd to me. Jesse Eisenberg was just an extra. The twist is lame to me, but most of the film is top notch.

 

[Fallen Angel]

Bloody fantastic.

Thanks for that.

On a serious note he came out all guns blazing with Sixth Sense and Unbreakable and Signs. So he was batting at a 1000 for me at that point. Everyone was hailing him as THE next great director. But everything since Signs what is it 8 movies? Have all been stinkers. And I've seen all of them...I think.

So its' not as if he got lucky and made one great movie Sixth Sense because he followed it up in my opinion with a better movie in Unbreakable. I hope he does get back to that level of film making but I doubt it.

 

[StarLord]

I can't even remember most of The Village, expect for BDH's awful acting.

Signs was hyped to hell. It was okay, nothing special.

 

[Majik1387]

My first movie of his I saw was The Sixth Sense and I thought it was great.

I know everyone adores Unbreakable but I guess I'm in the minority where it's a movie I just don't care for; I don't think it's bad but nothing about it interested me or entertained me.

With Signs, there were parts I liked, parts I didn't, and parts I loathed("swing away"); I still find it to be one of his most overrated movies.

I actually didn't mind The Village that much, and the twist, while stupid, wasn't full on "F*** this movie!" stupid for me.

Lady in the Water I thought had a great concept for a modern day fairy tale. I think the worst aspect about it was a lot of the dialogue, especially the movie critic's final scene. But other than that, I thought it was a serviceable movie.

The Happening had a really strong opening that I loved, but then once it cut to Mark Wahlberg in the classroom, it continued to get worse and worse. I don't think I've seen worse scenes than 'running from the wind' or such horrible CGI with the tiger video.

The Last Airbender I'm kinda still half and half on. I do hate the whitewashing of the characters, the lack of humor, and a lot of the wooden acting, however, I loved the costumes and sets and while I've seen some hate on it, I though all the special effects looked great. I feel like someone working on or producing the movie loved the cartoon, but somehow Shymalan had total final say over things.

Devil was so unimaginative, boring, and cliche. And that ****ing jellied bread scene, ugh. I know Shymalan didn't technically direct this, but he wrote and produced it, and promotion touted it as his new movie, so yes, he gets the majority of flack for it from me.

After Earth, I'll just say I'm happy I didn't pay to see such boring and horribly acted dialogue and action. I give it kudos for nice costumes, and great set special effects, but that's it.

And as for Wayward Pines, I had a marathon last week and I watched the whole season. and I'm still really torn on how I feel about it. I like how it started off Children of the Corn-esque, but then after the reveal it became pretty much like every dystopian future young adult novel movie mixed with I Am Legend and Village of the Damned.
I liked where they were going pre-reveal, but after that it just got too 90's tv movie on Sci-Fi Channel. Granted yes, good Sci-Fi channel and not Syfy, but still tv movie. With that said, M. Night apparently only directed the first episode, and I enjoyed it just fine. But I also know he produced like half the season, and I can feel his creative control over things, especially in that finale episode.

 

[Black Narcissus]

I can't even remember most of The Village, expect for BDH's awful acting.

Signs was hyped to hell. It was okay, nothing special.

Aliens hate water, but they come to this planet. Lawd.

 

[Majik1387]

They also have gas things in their wrists the same way Spider-Man has webs in his.

 

[StarLord]

Yeah that was odd. Is that what stopped the asthmatic kid from breathing at the end?

 

[DCW]

Seeing the list of films he's done is strange. I really like his first three but after that I don't care for any of them.

 

[Majik1387]

No, actually the kid's asthma saved him from the gas stuff. It's what Mel Gibson's character kept repeating to himself while holding the kid outside. Something along the lines of "The asthma closed the airway! The gas didn't get in!" I don't remember the exact lines though.

 

[Doctor Jones]

I love Signs and it's my favorite Shymalan film. Of course Sixth Sense and Unbreakable are excellent too. And I quite like The Village and think it's a very good movie until Phoenix gets stabbed. And I like the twist for what it is (at least it was unpredictable) yet it felt tacked on for the sake of having a twist. The promise of the story was kind of gone: An isolated village surrounded by woods with monsters in it. **** the twist, I STILL want to see that movie!

But I think my only explanation if hubris for his downfall.

 

[redfirebird2008]

One of the ultimate cautionary tales of the movie industry you could say.

 

[StarLord]

No, actually the kid's asthma saved him from the gas stuff. It's what Mel Gibson's character kept repeating to himself while holding the kid outside. Something along the lines of "The asthma closed the airway! The gas didn't get in!" I don't remember the exact lines though.

Ah yeah, that makes sense now. It's been a long time since I've seen it.

 

[BradenPickering]

I guess I'm kind of the opposite of a lot of people here. I saw Sixth Sense kind of late in the game after all the hype and couldn't help but feel "That's it?" Signs, on the other hand, I would place as one of the most unsettling and nerve-wracking films I have ever seen. (Although I agree it kind of falls apart if you analyze it too hard.)

 

[Octoberist]

He has the most loyal fans though. Like it's been a decade and 7 bad movies later they're like 'Oh..he has more movies in him. I just know it!"

 

[cheungcheung]

Liked Signs, hated The Village. Haven't seen any of his recent movies since they all have tuuuuurble reviews.

 

[childeroland]

Started to tire of him with Unbreakable, which I didn't care for, was done by The Village. Never made it through Lady in the Water, suffered through Airbender, which is at least entertainingly horrible, unlike the killer plant movie, which is just horrible.

 

[redfirebird2008]

Interesting factoid here. Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village all distributed by Disney. Since that time he has jumped around to every other studio. Wonder if he is practically begging to get these projects greenlit and then when they fail, he has to move on to the next studio.

Lady in the Water - Warner Brothers
The Happening - Fox
Last Airbender - Paramount
After Earth - Sony
The Visit - Universal

He's running out of studios at this point...

 

[spider-neil]

Sixth sense blew me the **** away.

Unbreakable was excellent until the twist.

And then, Oof! After that what the **** happended to M. Night? It's like the real M. Night has been abducted by aliens and replaced with a clone that doesn't know what the **** he is doing. I actively avoid his movies now, where as 6th Sense is one the best movies I have ever seen.

I think those same aliens abducted the Wachowski's after The Matrix.

 

[Pink Ranger]

Interesting factoid here. Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs, and The Village all distributed by Disney. Since that time he has jumped around to every other studio. Wonder if he is practically begging to get these projects greenlit and then when they fail, he has to move on to the next studio.

Lady in the Water - Warner Brothers
The Happening - Fox
Last Airbender - Paramount
After Earth - Sony
The Visit - Universal

He's running out of studios at this point...

The Burden of Infinite Deaths - Nickelodeon Movies
The Marine 6 - WWE Films
The Sixty Ninth Sense - Brazzers

 

[Thundarr]

Sixth sense blew me the **** away.

Unbreakable was excellent until the twist.

And then, Oof! After that what the **** happended to M. Night? It's like the real M. Night has been abducted by aliens and replaced with a clone that doesn't know what the **** he is doing. I actively avoid his movies now, where as 6th Sense is one the best movies I have ever seen.

I think those same aliens abducted the Wachowski's after The Matrix.

I agree with you almost 100% (I'd say about 95%). The Sixth Sense is one of my all time favorite movies. Unbreakable is almost as good. I didn't dislike the twist ending, I just found it to be not quite as strong a movie as Sixth Sense. Still pretty damn good though. The Village was okay, but I found the twist ending kinda lame. Everything since then has been worse and worse. Now a days I avoid Shyamalamadingdong's movies like the plague.

I like your alien abduction theory. If it's true, then I say to the aliens "Give us our directors back!"

 

[KRYPTON INC.]

The Sixth Sense is all around a well made film, but... I thought it was pretty obvious the first time I saw it what the "twist" was. It was still a well done and well acted film though and I enjoyed it for what it was and the promise that he as a director showed.

I also really enjoyed Unbreakable. It was like an art house super hero movie. The "twist" is no where near as telegraphed as the one in Sixth Sense, and is satisfying to me. There's too much opaqueness to Willis' character for my taste, but that also was at the start of "I'm super minimalist when I am in a SERIOUS movie" phase, so what are you gonna do? Overall it's M. Night's best film to my mind.

Signs... Dear God is this a dumb film. I never got the love some had for it at the time. It's got too many awkward moments, dull acting for the most part, and is just filled to the brim with DUMB. What is also apparent is M. Night's beginning of his injecting LITERALLY himself into his films in a big way. He had bit parts in his previous outings but here he wanted to give himself a role with some significance to the plot and characters. This would, like BDH's casting, come back to haunt us all in a later work of his. Overall I felt this was a silly stupid film that at the time got cut a lot of slack because it dealt with issues of "faith". But... Every director is going to have something I will not be crazy about. Not have a 100% record. Not Spielberg, not Nolan, not Scorcese... None of them. So... Mulligan on this was my take at the time.

When the Village trailer and commercials started I had this feeling that something was just off about it. Now seeing that he liked to use plot twists I stayed away from all reviews in TV and print. After a few more viewing of the trailer it hit me why I felt something was off. A friend of mine and I are on the phone and he had seen The Village opening weekend. I asked him point blank, "Say... Is the twist that this is really in the modern day and the "monster" is there to keep the people within a certain limit of where they live? " "Yep". That's when the bloom really came off the rose I think. Not only was it now apparent that he relied on these "twists" but he also had them in for the sake of having them it seems. I saw The Village on home video maybe a year later and while it's a good looking film and it's got a hell of a cast... You just don't care about anything, and the supposed cleverness of the twist is of putting cuz it's not clever. There is something also "off" about the setting, as I stated before. Something is not quite right and therefor it makes the twist expected. Also... Bryce Dallas Howard is just an all around lifeless actress. Which would come to haunt us all later in another M. Night film.

I am not gonna go on since the dreck that came later is world famous in it's awfulness in the eyes of so many. Somebody mentioned hubris and that's really a big factor I think. You don't inject yourself as a "storyteller with a tale that can change the world" or whatever crap he was spewing in Lady In The Water and expect us as an audience not to laugh, groan or both. Each subsequent film just gets more tone deaf and his handling of actors accomplishes nothing more than getting the worse sort of performances out of them. On the other hand, the entertainment media may also have played a part in this. You don't go proclaiming any director the "new ______" with such a limited sample of what they could do.

Right now... I actually wouldn't care if I never saw another movie from M. Night. I think he should explore cable and online shows. Perhaps a format that requires longer stories and arcs will be a better fit for him.