My recent viewing of Lady in the water marks it as one of M Nights best

His worst film, but it wasn't that bad. At the end I kind of felt like nothing happened and it was a waste of my time to watch it.

C+

B

I thought it was a nice little fairy-tale. I think a lot of the issues from viewing of this film are from people expecting another Shamalyan-esque twist film, when it is not... It is just a fairy tale. Score is good, acting by Giamatti and Howard is solid. However there is problems as already mentioned, such as everyone believing him so quickly, the beasts being a bit out there, the fact that no-one noticed there was a secret lair underneath the pool(?), and the fact that the film doesn't really feel as trusting in its own world as it should. I definitley agree the film critic character's last speech and Shamalyan casting himself as someone who is practically the messiah was a bit much and very very arrogant. For me it's far below Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and The Village, and on par with Signs which I am not as enthusiastic about as everyone else.

Unbreakable - A
Sixth Sense - A-
The Village - A-
Signs - B
Lady in the Water - B

I still like M. Night a lot.

Just saw Lady in the Water.
After all the bad buzz , my expectations for this movie were down to a minimum.
And it`s funny how your state of mind can re-direct your decision one way or another.

But first things first...this was not a normal viewing.
I`m portuguese.When i watch a dvd i like my portuguese subtitles.
That why i never "blind buy" a dvd.
First i rent it to make sure it comes with portuguese subtitles.
It usually does , but every one million years...it doesn`t.
It only happened to me twice....with Minority Report and now with Lady in the Water.

What happens is that i have to watch the movie with no subtitles.
Which also means i have to pay extra attention to the story.
I mean , i understand english but...subtitles help at times.

So , there i am in the living room , i shut all doors , all blinds go down and i pump up the volume.

And here`s what i saw...

Probably Shyamalan`s greatest achevement.
Lady in the Water is a story inside a story ( if that makes any sense ).
Shyamalan is a screenwriter and LITW is education to other screenwriters.
Having no subtitles i had to pay attention to the "sub-plot".
Listen carefully what every character said , watch what happens in the environment that surounds the character.
Which means that after 15 or 20 minutes , this movie wasn`t a bedtime story about a lady in the water , it was about character development.
The best example for what i`m trying to say is the character of the writer in the movie ( the bold guy with glasses ).
He`s the one who`s gonna help this average Joe called Cleveland , to see the plot that isn`t there.Ant it begins with giving every character in this movie a purpose to exist.
Along with the writer there`s the chinese mother , who`s a bit of an "oracle".
These two characters are the catalizors to the story behind the story.

And what is that?
It`s that this movie teaches your how to develop characters in a film script.

The chinese mother knows a fictitious story and the writer is gonna help Cleveland find that story in the real world.
Every fictitious character in the bedtime story will be found in the people who live in the building.

I myself have tried to write a screenplay.
I still hope to one day be a screenwriter.
Maybe for that reason i saw this movie with different eyes...or maybe it was the lack of subtitles that allowed me to look deeper.
Most people just saw it and either liked it or didn`t.
If you ask me , Shyamalan is still suffering from a "Sixth Sense" complex.
This is a man who`s trying to do something different and people dont let him.
All they want is a twist and a scare.

I say this movie is a masterpiece and Shyamalan`s best work.
Here`s my grades for his movies...

Lady in the Water ( B+ )
Signs ( B+ )
The Sixth Sense ( B )
Unbreakable ( C )
The Village ( D )

Alright! Not many people seemed to get the meta-story, but rather wrote it off as a simplistic fairy tale.

Glad to hear you enjoyed it, Ciber - it was definitely the best of Shyamalan's movies so far...

Yay!


It's a very missunderstood movie that already dropped out of my top 10 for the year given the year's quality, but I'm sure it'll be revisited in a few years...

Finally got around to seeing this.

It's my favorite of Shyamalan's films, just wonderful, truly captivating and lovingly told, an inspiring tale for those who are willing to lend it their faith...

Lady in the Water ... A
Unbreakable ... A

The Sixth Sense ... A-

The Village ... B+
Signs ... B+



The Happening ... C

This is the worst crap I have seen in a long time. - 1/10.

Have you seen The Happening?

No.

The Lady in the Water

What's the point of this movie? Why is it so important that she gets back to her world? and why do about 20 people drop their immediate lives and come to her aid? It's just a complete mess. The kid reading the....cereal boxes. I mean, really???? Come on, M. Night, there's only so much shit I can take. I totally understand about the story-within-a-story framework and how this film is lending its knowledge on how to create and breakdown film conventions, but I just think this movie was not the best way to go about that. It didn't work for me, therefore it just ended up being a load of mumbo-jumbo about some fake bedtime story.

Much of M. Night's shots and plots are similar to Hitchcock. We have the off-screen people corresponding with on-screen people, we have a "neighbourhood" of people (ala Rear Window) that the audience gets to know well, and we have the director appearing in the movie. Thing is, none of those things worked well in this movie like they do in Hitchcock movies. I did like some of the references to which people are which based on film codes, but the rest was pure garbage. I do not understand how a beast can take the water lady, whose name is Story (LOL), into the bushes with a huge head-start over Paul Giamatti, and she is saved with only scratches on her legs. She should have been killed. Then there's a huge eagle and three monkey people....Wtf?!!? It's ludicrous.

Christ, some studios will greenlight just about anything so long as it has a successful director or commercial name attached to it. M.Night was really allowed to let his mind run wild with this one. I feel asleep half way through - had to watch the rest after I woke up. If I'm missing something, then please someone tell me why this is so great, because otherwise my grade is as follows...

The Sixth Sense B+
Unbreakable A
Signs A-
The Village B+
The Lady in the Water F
The Happening B
The Last Airbender F

I've seen all of his now, so I'm happy about that. I always felt that I couldn't contribute to a conversation about him until I had seen all of his. Well, I haven't seen his movie that precedes The Sixth Sense, but I'm not going to bother about that because his "career" really started in 1999. I still like M. Night, and I'm intrigued by After Earth, but I just think that he needs to really learn about who he is as a film-maker before deciding on projects. He's trying to be too smart, and it falls flat.

I'd heard this was a severe drop off in quality from Shyamalan's earlier work, but I was skeptical I wouldn't like it as I believe The Village is very underrated. The film starts out with a few minutes of animated prologue, and it is indeed intriguing. Unfortunately, once we cut to the live action rest of the movie, it is one of the most elaborately constructed pieces of shit I have ever seen. It's like someone just threw 70 million dollars at M. Night, and were like "Go crazy." It is obvious he had far too much control over this project; any rational person could see that this is truly a flawed film from the very basest element.

The film is setup like this girl in the water is going to show mankind how to live right again. But the people she comes to help don't seem like they really need her help at all. they seem like they are doing alright. It's her that needs help, because for some reason, there is no weapon these water people have that can kill a wolf made of grass. I really don't feel like any lesson is learned, and the prologue is tacked on from another, much superior film.

And it is boring. My god, I was falling asleep so much in this film, I was almost ready to turn it off around the 50 minute mark. I got sick of the "man goes around talking to different members of the apartment building" structure really quick. The Asians are really portrayed in an annoying and racist way; they were probably the most cringe worthy characters ever put to film. I did not understand at all the significance of the kid with the cereal box. The guy who thought there was no originality left in the world was a really lame attempt at comic relief; he was obviously a very depressed man and his eccentric speeches about the predictability of everything were not even close to endearing.

And the script has to be one of the worst ever. Take the scenes of people talking about Narfs and scrunts out of context, and you literally have one of the stupidest sounding conversations ever put to film. It was like they were trying to parody the fantasy genre, but they apparently weren't

This is just a stunning failure in every department. Everything from the writing to the story to the characters are ridiculously horrid. One of the worst films I have ever seen.

F