The last Shyamalan film

Rating: 2/10 (13 June 2008)

Context: I really liked Sixth sense and the village. Lady in the Water and Signs I didn't like but thought they were watchable. Unbreakable was painful to watch but the ending made it worth the effort.
Review: To begin with the characters are unbelievable and shallow. I don't blame the actors, this is in my opinion clearly the fault of the director/screen play. You can see that there is potential but it is never brought forth. One ends up having no emotional connection to the film because one really doesn't care that much if a character lives or dies. They are hollow empty shells whose only use seems to be to give a running verbal dialog of what is visually happening on the screen.
The plot seems to be used solely as a mechanism for the director to give voice to his anti-human political stance. The devices he uses to drive the story forward are crude and intellectually insulting. It seems the director has an exceedingly low opinion of the IQ of his audience, or perhaps it is a simple lack of imagination. As one generally shouldn't blame malice when incompetence will do, I will simply state that I think Mr Shyamalan has lost his talent for story telling.
In certain scenes the visuals in the film seem designed to shock by their graphic nature. As a rule I don't mind this but there seemed to be no point other than to try to 'amp up' what is in reality a very long, drawn out, and rather pointless plot. It is so poorly done that it is in fact almost comical in certain scenes. None of the director's other films rely on gore and one gets the distinct feeling that the director is in desperation trying to rely on a cheap trick rather than put in the effort to tell an entertaining story.
The one redeeming quality of the film is in fact that it is so poorly done. Often when one initially becomes aware of a new film by a director that has done ground-breaking work in the past, one is almost compelled to see it even if their recent films "haven't worked out" (we all have bad days). The anticipation mixed with fear can be annoying. This film shows me very clearly that I can now safely ignore any further work from M. Night Shyamalan. I now feel a sense of release and so I am in a perverse way grateful to the director for making this film.
Thank you Mr Shymalan for making some truly wonderful films! Having now finished your movie-making career in style I wish you the best in whatever new field of endeavor has captured your interest.