That's a bad film, but worse than The Happening or After Earth? Not sure about that.
Lady in the Water is a thinly-veiled “take that” against all the critics who DARED to dislike Signs and/or The Village. The scene where the future-seeing kid tells Shyamalan (pretty much playing himself) about his future where he is basically murdered for writing “an amazing story like none other”, geezus christ. The jerk-off levels are probably unparalleled in film history. You made some movies, dude, you’re not goddamn Abraham Lincoln or MLK Jr., get a reality check.
Then there’s the critic character himself just to hammer that metaphor even further in, a character just flat out called “Story”, and the fact we’re seeing a talented guy like Paul Giamatti wasted in this drivel.
At least The Happening had a potentially awesome initial concept, it was just horribly handled, and After Earth does have a few nice visual shots on occasion. Nothing positive can be said for Lady in the Water and I think it should be considered his worst just to prove a point that getting bent out of shape over people having different opinions, whether positive or negative, will get you nowhere.
I was glad he seemed to be getting his stuff back together, I really enjoyed The Visit and Split, and even thought Glass was okay despite its flaws.
I was looking forward to Old, not sure how it would turn out, but then I heard about the two kids who get older but would still be children mentally and yet they have sex together and I was like:
I’ve heard there’s plenty of other plot holes and other things that don’t make sense with the established rules of the aging element, but that was definitely the big “aw hell no” element for me that I heard about.