Really, Mr. Shyamalan? Really?

Rating: 4/10 (14 June 2008)

Before I get into the body of this comment, let me just state that I am a serious fan of M. Night's movies, so much so that I feel perfectly comfortable with, and not at all disrespectful about addressing him by his first initial and middle name. No, I don't know him personally. And no, I am not a cyber-stalker. I don't make it my business to know about his personal life; I simply like the man's movies.
Unbreakable is probably my favorite, mostly because of his uniquely suspenseful and darkly dramatic approach to telling a superhero story. I also loved The Village, simply for the humanistic story of intellectuals who were willing to raise their kids in an Amish-style village completely cut off from the modern world, and doing so through the use of fear of the supernatural. I thought Lady in the Water was one of the most fantastic fantasy tales of the new millennium. And above all, I love M. Night's method of drawing us into the personal stories of his characters, allowing us to identify with them emotionally, and maintaining our interest through the use of compelling direction and storytelling.
That being said, I did find myself relatively entertained and preoccupied with phenomenally human performances from Mark Wahlberg, Zooey Deschanel, and John Leguizamo. Even little Ashlyn Sanchez gave a fine performance in the role she was given. The direction by M. Night was spot on, as usual, drawing us into the heart of the film. However, once we reached the heart of the film, M. Night's story became a sales pitch.
You see, even Mr. Shyamalan knew, in the telling of this story, that the event catalyst that drives the film would have to be explained...and that was where it all fell apart. Because the explanation that he offered us was so wholly unbelievable and contrived, he had to keep driving at that explanation to sell us on it. From the middle of the film right up to the end, we are fed some random guy's speculation, which snowballed into a science teacher's unsubstantiated hypothesis, and finally fleshed out in a professional botanist's biased theory as to why the happening occurred.
While M. Night tried to do for plants and trees what Hitchcock did so well for birds, the truth is that he pushed the explanation too hard. I felt like I was at a used car dealership, and I just spent a thousand dollars on a car that doesn't run. (After the cost of the ticket, a soda, and a box of Hot Tamales, it sure felt like a thousand dollars.) The direction and the performances were solid, but the story, though researched and scientific, was so unbearable unbelievable that it turned this devout follower into a skeptic.