With The Last Airbender heading to Irish screens, we take a look back at some of our favourite M. Night Shyamalan movies.
Air, Water, Earth, Fire. Four nations tied by destiny when the Fire Nation launches a brutal war against the others. A century has passed with no hope in sight to change the path of this destruction. Caught between combat and courage, Aang discovers he is the lone Avatar with the power to manipulate all four elements. Aang teams with Katara, a Waterbender, and her brother, Sokka, to restore balance to their war-torn world.
With The Last Airbender heading to Irish screens, we take a look back at some of our favourite M. Night Shyamalan movies.
THE SIXTH SENSE
The 1999 Academy Award nominated film which shot Shyamalan to instant fame was by no means a certainty. The film, which told the story of Cole Sear, a troubled boy (Haley Joel Osment) who claims to be able to see and talk to the dead and an equally troubled child psychologist (Bruce Willis), was given a very limited release at 9 screens in the UK. After entering the charts at #8, the film climbed up to #1 the following week with 430 theatres playing the film.
SIGNS
Four years after ‘The Sixth Sense’, Shyamalan once again proved himself an expert at building suspense and giving audiences the chills without overindulging in visuals. The sci-fi thriller centres on a family attempting to survive the arrival of aliens on earth and the seemingly unrelated events which lead to their survival. This well paced atmospheric picture had us on the edge of our seats (remember the scene with Mel Gibson searching the cornfields and briefly catching a glimpse of a foot in the field? It still gives us chills!).
THE VILLAGE
The story of a small community whose inhabitants are plagued by fear of the unknown forest that surrounds them. For years, they have kept a truce with mysterious creatures in the woods by vowing never to breach a clearly defined border. However, when a young man (Joaquin Phoenix) becomes determined to explore the nearby towns, his actions are met with menacing consequences. With ‘The Village’, Shyamalan manages to maintain the suspense and atmosphere of his previous films but a poor, predictable ending makes it average at best…