One-Trick Pony

I keep thinking about what a garbled mess The Village turned out to be. That film was really a disappointment from top to bottom. You can't expect to hit continuous home runs if people are able to anticipate your moves. Hm, that came dangerously close to a baseball analogy right there. Anyway, The Sixth Sense came out of nowhere with a terrific script and a great twist ending that you can't expect to duplicate over and over again. The script felt fresh and original because it was. After four movies, Shyamalan has painted himself into a corner. I could tell that he wanted to do something more with The Village, which is why I felt like it was trying to be two movies. Part of it was an intriguing social commentary while the other was the familiar horror/suspense schtick we expect from his work. There was a sprinkling of a love story as well which wasn't given nearly enough attention and fell completely flat. The Village wasn't career suicide for Shyamalan but I really think it's time for him to branch out into other genres. We've seen glimpses of comedic talent in his scripts, I'd like to see him explore that further. He understands people very well and he has a knack for entertaining a broad audience- he's a lot like Spielberg in that regard. But when you compare his work to the films of Senior Spielbergo- Jaws, Indiana Jones, The Color Purple, E.T., Schindler's List, Minority Report, etc.- you can see the glaring difference between a one-trick pony and a great filmmaker.