Further thoughts on M. Night Shyamalan's apocalypse
Tuesday, June 4, 2013 at 9:46PM 
Picking up where we left off: having tracked the steady descent in quality through the filmography of M. Night Shyamalan, it felt like it would be a good idea to revisit the man now that the weekend is over, and we've all had a chance to see his latest, After Earth. Though, based on its shockingly anemic box-office take, I'm guessing that most of you did not take that chance.
Good for you, because I did see the film, and wow, was it ever the wrong decision. Happily it does, as reported, reverse the plunging downward trend of his career: it's better across the board than The Last Airbender. But it still very clearly isn't a good movie and in one particularly respect it sharpens what might be the most disappointing element of Shyamalan's fall.
Looking all the way back to 1999's The Sixth Sense, one of the things that still impresses the most is the excellent central performance the director pulled out of 10-year-old Haley Joel Osment. Three years later, Signs had solid, if not quite as great work from Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin. But After Earth is now the second film in a row where Shyamalan is working with a child actor in the lead role, and it's the second time in a row where that child's performance is abysmal: Jaden Smith's turn as the sci-fi hero of this new film is stilted and painfully one-note, with a one-size-fits-all expression of dull surprise, sometimes paired with a watery grin to connote "excitement".
Topped off with the unimpressive visuals and the film's slack narrative development - the way that the ending comes feels less like a conclusion and more like the camera got bored and decided to wander away from the story - and it's hard to see what Shyamalan brings to the table that anybody who knew how to yell "action" couldn't have supplied. Is it time to declare Shyamalan's career over?
Reader Comments (14)
That photo says it all: there were two directors of this horrid film. Will should've learned from Travolta, these Scientology projects are a hard sell.
Having not seen Jaden Smith past his debut in The Pursuit of Happyness I can only trust you that it's gotten this bad. i don't really understand the impulse to push a kid into instant stardom. Why not see if they're talented first and, if you want them to be in the movies, get them supporting roles to test the waters?
Bia -- good point about two directors. I've seen that photo several times and never quite absorbed that but... DUH, YES.
Not yet. I think it will take a "Heaven's Gate" flop to ultimately kill Shyamalan's career. Then again, "Heaven's Gate" killed Michael Cimino's career as he would make four more feature films from 1985 to 1996 only to just make one short in 2007 for an anthology film but none of them had the acclaim or success of "The Deer Hunter".
Shyamalan was someone with much more promise as he was called the next Spielberg. Yet, after a series of bad films. He's a joke and I think it will take one more bad movie to ultimately end his career.
His credibility is already non-existent. Why does his career as a professional director have to end at all? Hollywood is filled with hacks and he's simply another one working for the opportunity to keep himself productive in the open.
3rtful- I'm so tempted to agree with you, but nothing about anything he's made prior to this film (which is an obvious director-for-hire job) says "hack!" to me. I think he genuinely has believed in just about everything he's done, and that's part of what makes his career so terrifying to me.
Tim — In order to become a genuine auteur you have to believe in what you're doing regardless of how misguided it is in the end (see Lee Daniels).
He should switch to doing those long form commercials with plots since his storytelling would fit better in 3-7 minute deals.
Setup!
TWIST!
End!
It might even remind him of a little thing called, "restraint."
I feel dirty now offering advice to save M. Night's career. Ugh
I personally don't see how studios greenlight Shyamalan's films anymore. I get this one (Smith being a known and international Box Office draw, he's an easy yes from an executive's perspective, even if the script looks abysmal), but Shyamalan's credibility with the film going public has gone so low that I cannot fathom why the studio takes the risk. There's little promise of critical or audience love at this point, and without either, why take the chance?
Never mind-I hadn't realized that his films did so well internationally. Still, going from someone whose first film received worldwide acclaim and six Oscar nominations to being a director whose films no one seems to like (though apparently enough people still see) is a mighty steep fall.
I sense judging by how many times in different guises the Pinkett-Smiths are mentoned on the poster that this less an m night shyamalan movie and more of will smith ego trip where the director has been bullied down into even having his name hidden in lots of the marketing,his performance on the uk's Graham norton chat saw was excruitiating to watch,such an ego he has and with Mchael Douglas sat on the couch he shoUld have shown a little more respect rather than make the show about HIM,poor Bradley Cooper and Heather Graham the other two guests barely got a word in due to smith spotlight hoggging and I used to be a fan.
I was going to make the same comment about the Smith/Shyamalan photo. Well, not so much that the film had two directors - although the Smith family name is everywhere on this movie - but that Jaden had two directors. It's no wonder Jaden looked so bewildered for most of the film, he was probably getting on set direction from Shyamalan and his dad, and then getting more at home that was contradictory.
That was the Smith family show all the way. M Night could resurrect his career if he made a good low budget scary movie.
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