Universal Dork

So the news is out M. Night Shyamalan has won multiple awards this year at the Razzies. The M. Night action-flick, which was razzed on by critics upon its release last year, won for Worst Director, Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, Worst Supporting Actor and a brand new category — Worst Eye-gouging Misuse of 3-D. Wow harsh huh? There was a time when Night was considered a genius.

I have to say personally The Last Airbender was pretty mediocre-and I honestly never even got around to even finishing watching the movie. But worst movie of 2010?? No way. Yeah it did indeed suck in a hard way-but I’d say it was leaps and bounds better than anything Adam Sandler put out last year!

So what gives with Night now days? Is he really THAT bad? The answer really is yes…and no. Let’s review his output starting from not his first movie-but his first good movie, The Sixth Sense. Hands down it blew me away. The twist was great and he pulled it off eloquently. This movie put him on the map as a big time sci-fi / horror contender. The next Hitchcock some even said.

Next was Unbreakable, another simply amazing movie-though some people complained it was too long and boring. I for one was once again blown away by Night and his take on real life super heroes and villains.

Next came Signs with ol’ racist buddy Mel Gibson. This one was onto the same winning formula once again building an intensely eerie atmosphere and a building storyline that near the end needed to explode. However the ending was a misfire and the incredibly campy baseball bat / cups of water / Christian faith bit was a bit too preachy for many.

Next up was The Village, which aside from being a rip off from the children’s book Running Out of Time by Magaret Peterson Haddix, suffered from an incredible first half and an incredibly un-sensationally delivered twist in the second half. Maybe this time the twist should have been that the monsters actually were real?

Yeah he was losin’ some serious cred which would continue to be lost in The Lady in the Water, which I actually like though really as more of a guilty pleasure. Still though the campy movie tried too hard and he suffered great criticism for casting himself in the role of the movie’s visionary world changing author.

Still though I was rooting for Shyam and his next movie-his first R-rated flick was bound to be him at a new level of creepy. However the actual movie “The Happening” was one of the worst major theatrically released films I’d ever seen. Literally nothing happened in the Happening. At this point I really considered Shyam a sham.

Then I rented The Last Airbender with little to no expectations and yeah it was a snooze fest exactly what I had expected-and that time he was using other peoples ideas and still couldn’t make a great film. So yeah he’s definitely lost his touch…..or has he?

Later then in the year the excellent “Devil” was released the movie he should have directed himself all along. Instead he wrote and produced it. Devil easily goes down as one of the best horror flicks of 2010. This is the realm Night needs to embrace. Instead he continues to make watered down movies still trying to touch peoples hearts.

The guy still has some serious talent-he needs to put Jesus aside for a while and give us a few seriously creepy films. Yeah and do it R-Rated again this time without killer plants and Marky Mark. Well what we know now is he’s back at the touching the soul sci fi schtick again with his new movie “One Thousand A.E.” starring Jaden Smith, sounding more and more like a repeat of last year….this guy just never learns does he….