Fun with Rotten Tomatoes

[Batutta]

Slate had some fun graphing out the career trajectories of directors and actors based on their RT scores over time.

http://www.slate.com/id/2296070/

Most vivid was their depiction of M Night Shamyalan's plummeting scores, almost a straight line into the toilet--

 

[MattinSTL]

The Village could have been great (for example)... but he sold us on a "world" and then jerked the rug out from under us... not just once, but TWICE... just to be DAMN sure we left the theater unsatisfied.

Take the greatest movie ever... pick one... let's say JAWS... and half-way through... "reveal" that the shark is a robot that Quinn was controlling... thereby eliminating any tension regarding the shark from that point ON... then... once the audience is already falling asleep because they no longer have a powerful driving force in the story... end it by saying that it was all a dream... or some other B.S. "twist"...

After the sixth sense I was trembling with excitement for The Village (and about this guy's great movies that were sure to come...) then after the final "spoiler" of the village... complete with a cheesy cameo... I wanted to start a riot in that theater.

The 3 highest scored flicks up there... are pretty decent movies... not perfect, but decent... all the rest were VERY disappointing for me... with really cheesy moments that left me wondering where his previous good ideas came from. How could the same guy have made all those films? He's like a one-hit wonder that's been on tour for 15 years.

 

[J.R. Hudson]

I agree Matt

I think Night has amazing visual skills and direction; but his stories and decisions have just gotten bad. Sense, Signs and The Village, all good films (Until the Village JEDI EWOK SHARK JUMP) we really awesome; hell, even LADY was beautiful in visual terms .....

But now ?

Meh

Night

 

[Doc Bernard]

I liked The Last Airbender. Bah.

 

[Jordan Scott Price]

I actually liked Lady in the Water for its microcosm (it all took place in the complex), Giamatti's performance, and, like Hudson said, the visuals. I think the story could have been GREAT, but he's become so selfish that he puts himself before the film - literally.

I hope he ends up directing more things he hasn't written.

Don't forget, The Sixth Sense was not his first feature, just his breakout.

 

[Jawa Ex Machina]

Wait, there was a second twist in The Village? What was it?

I only remember one, and I don't really want to revisit the film.

 

[MattinSTL]

Wait, there was a second twist in The Village? What was it?

I only remember one, and I don't really want to revisit the film.

*ugh*

SPOILERS!
















In the end of the film... we come to a tall chain-link fence... yeah... like you'd have around a game reserve... and it's revealed that yep, we 'aint back in time... we are 100% in modern day, where the guys who started the village found a place where no planes or traffic would be heard... and the elders of the village all had their reasons for wanting to abandon modern society (crime victims or other dysfunctions)... attempting to revert to something like 200ish years ago.

Yeah... greeeaaaaaat twist. I wonder if he got that idea driving behind a horse and buggy in PA?

Hey HERE'S a really simple way to do the same exact thing WITHOUT making the whole audience feel like suckers... Why the heck didn't he make the story surround an amish township? or any one of several modern, yet "primitive" groups... so that we the audience just assume we're way back in history? At least that way we don't get a very specific sales pitch on one thing... only to be "twist revealed" that no, what we were previously sold wasn't really the case?

The same movie... but in an amish community... with the final reveal of the movie being that the monster was one of the townsfolk... and then a quick follow up shot of a jet flying over... all crashing down on the audience in a couple minutes... could have still been manageable, but instead they tell you the monsters aren't real at the end of the first friggin' act!... then the "big twist" is that it's actually modern day... almost an HOUR after Fonzi successfully cleared the shark.

 

[Jawa Ex Machina]

*** Spoilerinoes ***

Hey HERE'S a really simple way to do the same exact thing WITHOUT making the whole audience feel like suckers... Why the heck didn't he make the story surround an amish township? or any one of several modern, yet "primitive" groups... so that we the audience just assume we're way back in history? At least that way we don't get a very specific sales pitch on one thing... only to be "twist revealed" that no, what we were previously sold wasn't really the case?

The same movie... but in an amish community... with the final reveal of the movie being that the monster was one of the townsfolk... and then a quick follow up shot of a jet flying over... all crashing down on the audience in a couple minutes...

Wow yeah that wasn't too good. I remember the part about the modern setting but not that the monster thing was revealed as a twist.
How about this: Instead of the monster not being real, and it's really set in a modern age... How about the people aren't real but the monsters are, and while we think it's set in New York or something today, the twist is that it's actually set in another age?

Oh wait.

The Wachowskis did that a lot better five years before The Village.