I didn't realize Devil was coming out this weekend. The prospect of another foray into the mind of M. Night Shyamalan seemed so unpleasant that I must have blocked all info about Devil from my mind. It has only been out for a couple of days so I have yet to hear much in the way of word of mouth, but in terms of various critic reviews (from critics I trust) I have heard both good and sort of bad.

What do I think of it? I don't know because I don't plan to see it. Granted, Shyamalan only produced Devil. That means he most likely only came up with the idea for it. It is directed by Drew and John Dowdle, the same two who directed the American adaptation of Quarantine. I will admit that avoiding this film on principle is unfair. There is a sense of betrayal in having liked someone's creations for so long only to have them become consistently bad. Also there is the fact that Shyamalan's ruined The Last Airbender when it so easily could have been good.

Anyone who was around in the late 90s and not living under a rock should be familiar with The Sixth Sense. In 1999, rookie director M. Night Shyamalan took the world by storm with it while starting up hopeful young actor Haley Joel Osment's career. Most notably, Shyamalan established his shtick as the "plot-twist guy".

He followed it up one year later with a unique superhero movie starring Bruce Willis and Samuel L. Jackson. I daresay that Unbreakable beat Batman Begins to the punch in terms of being a realistic superhero film devoid of cheesiness. If Unbreakable had been made with minor improvements in pacing and some more action, it could have been as fondly remembered as even The Dark Knight. Unfortunately this movie fades into obscurity and is usually forgotten when people try to name all of Shyamalan's films.

In 2002, Shyamalan came out with Signs. This is arguably where things began to decline. I will concede that the plot twist is weak, but Signs was still an interesting film with exceptional character development and relationships as well as extra drama occurring alongside the looming alien invasion.

Basically it had everything Independence Day needed to be a good movie

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From there, the definitive trend was that every other year, another lame film with a contrived plot twist would come out. There was The Village which most people dislike, Lady in the Water which generally everyone dislikes, and The Happening whose trailer seemed to depict people running away from nothing which somehow did not grab the interest of audiences.

Mark Wahlberg talks to a plant. Riveting!

Then we have the pièce de résistance. The Last Airbender.
Avatar: The Last Airbender is a widely acclaimed series and probably the greatest cartoon series of the decade. It seems like the kind of show that would have typical childish humor, cheesy acting, and lame writing, but it does not. It pushes the boundaries of depth for a cartoon show. For example, among the main characters is a comic relief character named Sokka. Not only is this character genuinely funny but he is also believably serious when he needs to be and deals with real issues including dating and even the death of a girlfriend.
And unlike Harry Potter, Avatar's world is accurately based off Buddhist lore and an in-depth knowledge of how chakra works. This gives all of its mystical aspects a feeling of realism since the rules for element bending are so detailed. Harry Potter relies more on plot convenient spells.

Winguardium Deus ex Machina!

With a series that has already been written and with a world that is so well developed, surely a visionary like M. Night Shyamalan would easily be able to strike gold and bounce back from his decline. That's what I and many others thought. How could ANYONE screw this up!?!

Well M. Night Shyamalan sure did. This is especially surprising when you see how gung-ho he was to make this movie.

So his daughters introduced him to the show and he loved it. He loved it so much that he asked Paramount to be given the chance to make the movie. That sounds like the recipe for a great movie. Then when you see the actual movie... ouch. The film focuses on unimportant aspects of the first season of the show. Not only that but he consistently breaks the "show don't tell" rule with a saturation of expository dialogue and narration. The above interview indicates that he knows which scenes from the show to omit from the film for time purposes but he ends up creating plot holes for the film. Even the simplest things did not make sense. When Southern Water Tribe members Sokka and Katara discover Aang the Avatar, they don't even bother to ask him his name until a couple of days into their journey.

I hope that Paramount decides to cease production on the two sequels. Heck, they should start over and let Guillermo Del Toro direct instead! Now that would be a good trilogy.