Well, there was nothing of precedent for it to conflict with or capitalize directly on.
Still, thanks for the feedback. I'm still trying to figure out how much of the critical bitching stems from (1) the involvement of the Director Not To be Named, and (2) Will Smith cast against type.
I don't really have the money right now to justify seeing it in the theater, but probably Redbox. I have trouble watching SyFy channel movies, unfortunately; they just annoy me despite the sometimes interesting blurbs/trailers.
Will Smith didn't really do much in the movie, and he tends to be serious in the wrong movies. The movie was mostly trying to make Jaden Smith into an action hero or something, but he seems entirely too wimpy.
And keep in mind, I'm comparing this movie to
The Happening, The Last Airbender, and yes, I also hated
The Village. I would rank
After Earth above those three, but we're still a long way from
Unbreakable. Thankfully, however, M. Night didn't seem to try hammering in any kind of environmental message like I feared, which I guess you could consider a twist of sorts. I guess fear isn't real after all.
But looking back at his career, I thought the only redeeming quality of
The Last Airbender were the vfx, except for the ones that were clearly meant to be a 3D gimmick, and it was a nice-looking movie. But it had some terrible acting and writing. On the other hand, I remember some "journalists" complaining about racism. In this case, it was the villains having darker skin color. Number 1, isn't that typical of nearly all movies? Number 2, isn't the director Indian? I was reading an article about the most offensive characters in movies, and naturally, Watto and Jar Jar Binks show up, but I think the persons making these associations are the ones who are racist and exploiting stereotypes. If Watto is "supposed" to be a Jew and Jar Jar is "supposed" to be a Rastafarian (and correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't the actor playing Jar Jar a black guy basing his performance on his Caribbean grandmother?), then why isn't Yoda "supposed" to be the wise Chinese guy? Point being, I think the allegations of racism in the movies are completely unfair and hypocritical, but for some reason, I notice this tendency to exploit racism when the rest of the movie is poorly received.
Then we have
The Happening, which was just strange and very, very pretentious. That's really all I have to say. I find it hard to believe that this movie was even trying to be a horror movie, because every "horror" element seemed to be played for laughs. I suppose that certain elements could've been chilling, but it was all just totally run into the ground.
I actually didn't think
Lady in the Water was that bad, except for the movie critic character, which was clearly M. Night's unsubtle jab at the critics' voices of his previous work (and frankly, Roland Emmerich's
Godzilla was more clever at this). I did like the premise, but it became plainly obvious that Shyamalan was trying too hard to be quirky with his filmmaking style. Though to be fair, this already began with...
...
The Village, where all of it just seemed too go to his head, whereas this movie's successor tried too hard with its overall sense of style, this one tried
way too hard with the twist. In this case, it was a gimmick that just pissed me off.
Signs gets a lot of unfair criticism. I enjoyed it. I thought that the whole epic premise played at a small scale was effective, although the whole religious angle was over-the-top. Still, I think what people criticize the movie for is unjust, like how the aliens don't like water and yet land on a planet covered with water. Isn't it conceivable that the aliens didn't know what that liquid substance was until they came into contact with it? The aliens' technology is not explained at all, so who the hell knows? I will admit that their inability to open doors was a little bizarre, but I didn't think it was that big of a deal.
Unbreakable was his best movie, and I have very few complaints about it. I'd go as far as consider it a masterpiece. Why? Well, frankly, I'm getting tired of writing, so...next movie.
The Sixth Sense was good the first time I saw it, but it lost its appeal rather quickly. And yes, I was an avid watcher of
Are You Afraid of the Dark? and yes, I was thinking about that particular episode that M. Night later revealed to be his inspiration. But I thought it was a well-told spin on that story. But it's nowhere near as thrilling after multiple views,
Unbreakable, on the other hand, is.