You know, it has become very easy to poke fun at M. Night Shyamalan. Perhaps he became a little over confident after his early successes, perhaps he became a little too dependent on what became a too-predictable formula, perhaps - and I think this is the most likely scenario - he caved in to pressure from above to produce easily marketed 'Shyamalan movies' with the director himself used as the key marketing hook. Whatever the case, the director ended up going front and center in the marketing of his past few titles only to have people declare that the emperor was naked when they failed to entirely live up to expectations.
That said, I still believe that Shyamalan is still one of the most interesting genre film directors working in North America, and he is certainly one of the most technically impressive. He's never forgotten the importance of story and character - making it all the more frustrating when he gets those elements slightly wrong - and there are very, very few out there who shoot better film than he does. So whenever a new Shyamalan title comes along I make a point of taking a good hard look at it. And The Happening, his latest, looks worthy of the scrutiny. The first trailer has just arrived, you'll find it below the break in the Twitch Player, and beyond saying that the best I can do is just say go take a look.
I hope they make sure to take lots of water with them. It's important to be hydrated.
Especially when aliens might invade.
This contain spoilter but only if you consider reading a plot synopsis to be full of spoilers.
The repetition of "happen" bugs me but more so is the fact that the catalyst to all these mysterious suicides is something about the energy crisis. I don't disagree with the politics of finding economic sources but using it in such a cheap way to make a political statement from a film where only Americans are committing suicide (I read this off of the wikipedia plot synopsis). It makes me think he's trying to commit career suicide and this is from a guy that almost tolerated "Lady in the Water."
It's easy to poke fun at Shyamalan for the simple reason that he makes poorly written-crappy-one-trick-pony disasters of films.
This one just looks like his usual bag of tricks.
I'm not trying to criticise you for saying you didn't like "Cloverfield," I just didn't think it fair for you to try and dump and run without an explanation.
With regard to that, I'm still a bit confused as to why "Cloverfield" is a "kid's movie" in your opinion and I say that with a desire to earnestly understand your claim. What do you mean that it could've been anything else other than a monster? What does that mean.
Cloverfield is more about a general threat (if you'd like to take it any further than it's popcorn/kids roots :)). People don't know why they are afraid but they still are. It's the media and government that that scare them and this is the beast that now haunts New York :)
On the trailer: It looks like mass suicide, count me in! :)
Kairo is the first thing i thought when i saw the trailer.. good call. One of my favorite movies ever
Funny, because my argument is much the same as yours. It's just a movie. Why must it be anything more?
And if we're going by your complaint, why couldn't the threat in signs be anything other than aliens? Does the story only work if it's aliens? Can 'Swing Away' only mean something in the context of aliens?
Either way, yeah, the trailer is very remeniscent (wow, sp?) of Kairo. I have no expectations that it will be as good as Kairo, but it looks good anyway.
I don't think Cloverfield was supposed to be anything more than a popcorn flick. Abrams has said that he wanted an American monster like the Japanese have Godzilla and dozens of others. The difference is that Godzilla was an allegory for the atomic bomb and usually monster films from that era were allegories for something, the bomb or the commies. If you look at the websites created for Cloverfield you might think that it's monster was an allegory for consumerism as the monster is woken or created as a result of commercial drilling on the ocean floor. Is it a jab at America's dependence on oil? Or the need to own everything? I don't know but you could read that out of it if you dug deep enough.
As for M. Nights movies. While they look amazing and usually start out really well they have a tendency to fall apart in the later half (except The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable which are movies that I truly love). Only one of his "Twist" movies worked IMO, the Village was just too unbelievable to work, even more so than a ghost story.
Signs was just inherently flawed story vise and I hated that he tried to hide the aliens even after the family stood in front of one, like he was trying to hide the fact that he was doing an alien invasion movie but felt ashamed to admit it. Sure the film was more about the family and how they coped with it but it was an alien invasion film and they fought one in the end and I wanted to see it.
I haven't seen Lady in the Water so I can't comment but from what I have read and heard it seems that it's all over the place.
re: Signs. Shyamalan wasn't deliberately hiding the aliens because he was ashamed of an alien movie or anything like that. the clues are everywhere in the mvie, visually and otherwise, that he was making a "radio play movie", ie. a tribute to Orson Welles' legendary War Of The Worlds radio programme. that also explains the whole sequence that happens in complete darkness.
and no, it could not be any othe threat except an alien invasion because it's a story about faith. it's essential to ask "do you believe in beings from outer space?" life on other planets, UFOs, have been a human contention and a question of belief for a long time now.
I think that's the problem with creating a twist at the end of a film. Everyone expects it in a director's subsequent releases, and if they're waiting for one, they're more likely to find it. That said, THE VILLAGE was too obvious, to the point where even if you weren't anticipating a Shyamalan twist, you'd still see it.
THE SIXTH SENSE's twist is essential to the plot. In fact, if you take it away, you end up with a fairly bland ghost flick. Does SIGNS really even have a twist? UNBREAKABLE does, most certainly, but in that particular case, the movie works even without it. That's why it's my favorite of Shyamalan's work. But I didn't think LADY IN THE WATER was that bad. The end was cheesy, but as a character study, it was interesting.
And in case I didn't write "twist" enough in these comments, here it is a few more times: twist, twist, twist...
Somebody claiming that Shyamalan's characterisations are "really great"?
Now I've heard everything.
They are simple props and pawns to get to his trick ending. He came closest to actually developing characters in "Unbreakable", but he botched the progression of that movie so badly it didn't make any different. Same with "Signs". Don't let a decent story idea get in the way of a gimmicky ending. And don't even get me started on "Lady In The Water"...
I was pretty impressed by the trailer, but then Mark Wahlberg showed up. Why, Shyamalan, Why?!
man, people love to bash the man. I for one LOVE Unbreakable. I can watch that film over and over. Same with Sixth Sense. I'm one of the few that also really enjoyed The Village. Not to keen on Signs though i didn't hate it and same with Lady in The Water. I'm looking forward to the next release and hope it'll be a little better than his recent output.