THE M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN 6-PACK REVIEW

In celebration of M. Night Shyamalan’s upcoming opus, ” Lady In the Water” – which the trailer promises will be “Splash” without the charm, romance or humor – I’ve decided to give Night his first retrospective, as befits a director nearing the end of his career.

First off, of course, there was – no, we’re not up to the good one yet – “Praying With Anger”, starring, produced, directed, written and catered by Night, and presumably he shrink-wrapped the DVD’s himself as well, but I wouldn’t know, nor would anyone else, because no-one saw it. Ditto “Wide Awake”, not to be confused with “Eyes Wide Shut”, which unfortunately I did see. But we’ll have to save that one for the Kubrick retrospective, or perhaps my review of the Cruise-Kidman trilogy (tentatively titled Speeding, Spuds & Sperm).

Finally, then, we arrive at “The Sixth Sense”. Now, as an omniscient being, you’d think it would be pretty hard to fool me with a twist ending, but Night managed it, and I was shocked. For God’s sake…that isn’t Bruce Willis’ real hair! Sure, there were a few plot details to be nitpicked after the fact, but overall it was more fun than putting deer ticks in the Garden of Eden, and that’s a high standard. Haley Joel Osment was a revelation – he’d go on to star in “Pay It Forward”, um…”Artificial Intelligence”, er…”The Country Bears”…and so on – Bruce Willis was back on track for “Die Hard 4”, and Night had established himself as a star director and a notably ethnic bit player. The picture made just shy of $673,000,000 worldwide.

Anticipation was huge, then, for “Unbreakable”. (I’m skipping “Stuart Little” since he didn’t direct that one, so it isn’t really part of the oeuvre, which is the cineaste’s word for breakfast menu.) Night himself pronounced it the perfect script, and actually made the executives at Disney dress up in mouse costumes and play with cheese to earn their chance to read it. (He also made them call him Stuart.) The movie, of course, knocked Bruce Willis back off the track for “Die Hard 4”, principally because absolutely nothing happened in it. Apparently Night had been so busy constructing the now-obligatory twist ending that he’d had no time to write the actual movie, so Bruce, who plays a natural-born superhero, wanders around looking glum for 104 out of the 106 minutes, then stops a robbery. The Shyamalan name still had zeitgeist zest on the coattails of “Sixth Sense”, but b.o. was a great deal less boffo at $248,000,000. Still, it beat out “The Dukes of Hazzard”, so clearly there was still a place for art in the world. Or whatever.

The anticipation was limping slightly by the time “Signs” came out, but the movie was still quite a phenomenon, putting Mel Gibson back on track for “The Passion of the Christ” (giving me my best role until “Prada”), and prepping Joaquin Phoenix for his star turn in the biopic about Ray Charles. Millions of viewers were apparently willing to overlook the little detail that a malevolent alien species, intelligent enough to accomplish interstellar travel, would nonetheless choose to come to Earth even though they dissolve in water. Presumably the prospect of taking over a planet that is two-thirds water, resulting in air full of mist, fog, humidity, clouds and rain, was a detail of war-planning they chose to ignore. But in this regard they were pretty much in the same boat as the “War of the Worlds” aliens, who can be killed with bird poop, and the Pentagon during the planning of the Iraqi invasion. So the public decided to suspend their disbelief, logic, and common sense, and the movie made $408,000,000. Night was back on top, or at least the middle bunk.

Night took the plot criticism of “Signs” quite hard, though. So hard, in fact, that he decided: “Fine! I’ll make the exact same movie, with all the creepy build-up, only this time…it’ll turn out there are no aliens!” Thus was “The Village” foisted upon the world. River Phoenix returned to prove that he, too, was far from unbreakable, while Bryce Dallas Howard stumbled around blindly trying to find her way into a better movie. The gross: $256,000,000 – or lunch money, in Disney Dollars.

So did Bryce succeed? Will her turn as a ghostly-looking mermaid in “Lady In the Water” put her back on track for the big-screen version of “Mayberry RFD”? Nina Jacobson at Disney certainly didn’t think so, as Michael Bamberg relates the tale in his new book “The Man Who Heard Voices”, about the making of “Lady”. Her criticisms of the script – confusing plot, unwise scene where a film critic is attacked (the nerve!), weird character names, huge part played by Night, 6 foot Korean woman – left Night weeping. Weeping! At long last, Hollywood, have you no decency? Not to be deterred by the lack of vision of three of the most experienced movie executives in the industry, Night took his ball and went to Warner Brothers, where he got everything he wanted. So at least that story had a satisfying ending.

So where’s the spiritual dimension in all of this? Is it in the story of family bonds, and oatmeal-poisoning, in “Sixth Sense”, or in the metaphorical presence of a vengeful and highly soluble God in “Signs”? No, it’s all much simpler than that. It’s in the fact that it’s been almost 10 years since Night came up with that one terrific script, and time is running out. So a piece of advice for Night – either move to Vancouver and call Morgan Pym, or get to work on that script for “Mayberry RFD” right away.  If "Lady" bombs, you've only got one shot left before you'll be beyond redemption.

ADDENDUM:  OK, I sat all the way through "Lady in the Water", and I'm pleased to say the Ninth Circle of Hell has a new movie in rotation.