I can’t say I consider myself a fan of M. Night Shyamalan. I loved The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable (despite the latter’s rather plodding place for 3/4ths of its length), but Signs was crap and The Village was so inanely fucktardedly stupid it was close to unwatchable. I skipped The Lady and the Water and The Happening based on the reviews and have no desire to see them even on DVD.
Two out of six films isn’t a great average, especially when he seems to be getting worse with each successive movie. But I’ll hold out a little bit of hope for The Last Airbender. My son and I used to watch the cartoons it’s based on, and I enjoyed them for the most part. (The cartoon is called Avatar: The Last Airbender, but James Cameron’s monster of cinema snatched up the film rights to that particular title a long time ago; hence the shortened title for the Shyamalan movie.)
This will be the first Shyamalan film that’s not based on an original idea of his (though he did write the script and produce, which is where some of my remaining trepidation comes from). I think this is a good thing. I think Mr. M. Night got a little drunk on this idea that he was some kind of Hitchcockian auteur before he really had the chops to prove it, or people around him to tell him, “No, this is a fucking awful idea and you’re going to do something else.” Sometimes carte blanche is a bad thing. Really.
Based on the preview, the movie looks fairly solid. I know there’s something of an uproar over the fact that the two kid leads aren’t actual Asians, but when has Hollywood casting ever been fair or right? The kid in the cartoon didn’t seem particularly Asian either, and whoever they cast to play him in the movie is a dead ringer for the character and seems to have all of the moves down, and to be honest, that’s what’s important to me. I guess my Appropriate Ethnic Casting Outrage Detector just isn’t going to redline over this one.
Anyway, here’s the trailer for your viewing pleasure. So, you know, be pleased.
Update: Thursday, February 11. Sorry, it seems the trailer has been yanked. I checked around for other sources and they all seem to have disappeared. If/when I find it again I’ll repost. Sorry!
Later update: And now it seems to be back again!
