Wow, Film School Rejects really hates this thing.
To the fans of the original series: I am offended on your behalf.
As you might imagine, the offense was committed by the director, M. Night Shyamalan, but that’s not where it ends. On the whole, Paramount’s The Last Airbender is perhaps the most well-rounded failure of 2010. Whether it’s the wooden performances of its young cast, the action sequences, the community theater-level dialog, the story’s pace or even James Newton Howard’s score, nothing works.
I feel like, instead of the other way around, MNS has gotten worse with each film he's made.
The Sixth Sense
was really good,
Unbreakable
was interesting,
Signs
sort of grew on me after a while (and it was also filmed largely in Bucks County, PA, where we lived at the time -- I knew all those small-town locations), and the rest are just completely ridiculous.
He hasn't been offensive till now, though.
I thought The Sixth Sense was okay, and I hated Unbreakable, so I stopped seeing his movies. Those were supposed to be the good ones, after all. I was curious about Airbender until the casting nonsense. I already don't like his work, so it wasn't a hard call.
I know he has one earlier movie, pre-
Sixth Sense,
that I never saw. I wonder what that was like.
The Village
and
The Lady in the Water
were absurd. I never bothered with
The Happening.
It's odd to see someone with so much promise go farther off the rails every time.
And yet, when will studios quit giving him money?
And yet, when will studios quit giving him money?
When his movies stops being profitable.
It's odd to see someone with so much promise go farther off the rails every time.
It really is. I still wish he would direct a screenplay
by someone else
, but at this point... it may be too late.
He is too isolated, that's been part of his problem. He needs to collaborate more.
I didn't think "The Village" was that bad, but I saw the twist coming a MILE away.
I liked "Unbreakable" better than Beau did, but it isn't an especially good movie. I think I could watch Samuel Jackson in almost anything. I say almost because I refuse to see "Amos & Andrew." Under any conditions. Or that crazy movie where he hates interracial couples.
I like Unbreakable, but a good 70% of my enjoyment is the comic-book visuals. And I thought The Village would have been so much better if he could have freed himself of that damned twist. But given both of those, and what came after, it seems like he decided he was good at storytelling and... he's really, really not.
