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It's 'Happening': Early Bad Reviews for Night Shyamalan's Latest
At this stage of the game, I think more people would
rather see
Night Shyamalan fail than succeed. Over the
past four years, anyway, those people have gotten their wish.
I don't know what it is exactly that makes Shyamalan a
detested character. His first two major releases,
The Sixth Sense and
Unbreakable, were terrific; Sixth Sense
is a modern classic.
Signs followed up Unbreakable, and while
it's not as good, it was on par with most summer movies. The last two, however,
The Village and
Lady in the Water, are just bad films. B-a-d.
But that hasn't stopped people from still loving Kevin
Smith, who hasn't directed a good, original movie since at least Dogma,
and some would argue since Chasing Amy. And people still have some
misplaced reverence for the likes of Brian De Palma and Francis Ford
Coppola, even though they're 20 years removed from good movies. Surely a full two decades without making anything worthwhile has to somehow counterbalance the 15 years when they made good to great films, right?
I suspect a lot of the vitriol aimed at Shyamalan is due
to the fact that not only does he cast himself in every movie, but that his
roles are also getting bigger each time out. He was the third most important
character in Lady in the Water, for instance. Unless I've missed
something in the trailer, he's not in
The Happening, his latest summer movie. But
Mark Wahlberg is, and that's bad enough for
Collider, who saw an early cut of the film and
has nothing positive to say about it. "I'm
saying this with no hyperbole, but Wahlberg might very well give the worst
performance I've ever seen in anything. He's that bad."
Calling it bad on an epic scale, the
Collider review adds, "This is bad in a jaw-dropping 'they can't really be
serious, can they?' kind of way. The closest comparison I can draw is to Neil
LaBute's Wicker Man." That's certainly high praise, but it's also a
version of the film that has no musical score, meaning that there are probably
dozens of edits still to be made and, of course, with a thriller, the score is a
key component. However, bad acting is bad acting, so be warned about Wahlberg, I
guess.
As the week drew to a close a new, very short red bad
trailer emerged for The Happening, one that has plenty of unsightly
images, and might I say they're pretty intense for a Night Shyamalan movie.
The Happening will either save Shyamalan's teetering career or put another nail in his coffin beginning Friday, June 13th.
Posted on Saturday, May 17, 2008 at 11:16AM
by
Colin Boyd
in Trailers, Mark Wahlberg, Night Shyamalan, The Happening
|
2 Comments
Colin Boyd
in Trailers, Mark Wahlberg, Night Shyamalan, The Happening
|
2 Comments
Reader Comments (2)
I just have to say that I for one would rather see him succeed than fail, but only with ventures that don't have him as a featured character. While he may be vain enough to cast himself in his movies, he's not dumb enough to show himself if the trailer, so I wouldn't be surprised if he were in The Happening as well.
And I'm surprised at how much grittier that trailer seems than his past projects, which left much of the gore in our minds as viewers. I just hope he isn't abandoning the aspects of the thriller that made his first few movies successful, and trading it in on the lower common denominator of all graphic imagery.
If I wanted to leave my brain at the door there are plenty of other flicks to see this summer.
M.Night at least defies to be diffrent and attempts something new. Istead of conforming to the recyled tiolet paper material that hollywood wipes their ass with, he goes out and strikes a new path.
I for one am thankful. Have you seen this summer's trailers? The entire summer movie line up is derived from comic books. Hollywood is at the bottom of the idea barrel. And don't think that they don't have their own end of the world movie in the works. Since the Sixth Sense M. Night has been coppied over and over.
He made Unbreakable they started making Superhero films. He makes Signs they can't come up with anything original, so they re-make War of the Worlds. Baddly I might add. Most want him to fail, because he did what they couldn't. Ever since the Sixth Sense the guy has been held to an unfair higher standard then the majority of name directors in hollywood. If his movies don't crack two hundred million, then they're considered a failure.
They need to remove the bullseye from M.Night's chest and let him create. He's still over five hundred. He's written and directed five major films. Three have been box office mega hits, and two recouped their budget with luke warm returns. With the exception of Speilberg and Lucas who are in a strasphere all their own, name me another director with this track record?
You can't. And you shouldn't judge whether an artist is good by looking at one piece in their portfolio. You evaluate them by the body of work they produced over their carrer. And that is what M. Night is an artist in the truest sense of the word.