worse even than expected - so what happened?

Rating: 1/10 (3 June 2009)

The expansive laundry list of the failures of this mind-numbingly miserable, preposterous excuse for a film, which essentially includes every conceivable aspect and component of it, have been well detailed in earlier posts. I won't waste much time reiterating those comments. I have to say that I disagree with those who, in spite of their overall distaste for the film, with which I heartily agree, found the first so many minutes to be watchable, or the score to stand out as a positive feature, or who found anything else positive to say about any part of this thing. Perhaps you're just being kind. No need. OK, Deschanel is a cutie, but that's it for this film.
So what happened to Shymalan? Sixth Sense was obviously a masterpiece. Unbreakable was brilliant, although the stilted dialog was starting to show. In Signs we still had a good story and very watchable thriller, but it was becoming clear that Shymalan had no idea how real people actually talked to one another. In these first 3 films we had Bruce Willis, Samuel L. Jackson, and Mel Gibson, top of the A-list talents, and one must wonder how much of the quality of these films was due to their great ability and superb performances rendered. Shymalan has not been able to recruit this caliber of actor since Signs, as no doubt actors and their agents do read the screenplays pitched to them. Not to take anything away from Hurt, Giammati, or Whalberg, who all have done and are capable of more great things, but they are a step down from the likes of Willis and Gibson, and this compounded with increasingly silly stories and atrocious dialog, the result was one mediocre, one bad, and one utterly awful film, in that order.
Another possibility is that Shymalan stole his first two or three stories, or has since lost an important uncredited collaborator or muse, and really never had any talent himself. In any case, that's probably it for Shymalan, and it's about time.