New hero for 8-year-olds? M. Night Shyamalan

One thing I was taught, many years ago as a student journalist, was this: Never use a question lead. If I were to use it here, though, it might go something like this:

What the hell is wrong with M. Night Shyamalan?

That question presupposes something, of course. It assumes that there once was something right with Shyamalan. And with the way the guy began his career, it was only natural to think that way.

Consider: After a couple of lightly regarded starter movies - “Praying with Anger” and “Wide Awake,” neither of which I’ve seen - he became an instant success with “The Sixth Sense.” This film, which introduced us to what we’ve come to know as the Shyamalan style, is the ultimate parlor trick: a film that hides its obvious ending behind a blend of deliberate pacing, somber tone, understated acting and gorgeous cinematography.

It’s been that blend, the Shyamalan style, that has overshadowed what many saw as an essential vacuity in Shyamalan’s screenplays. The man writes his own material, but he owes large debts to other sources, “Twilight Zone,” for example, and in the case of his latest, “The Last Airbender,” a Nickelodeon kids’ television show. And at the heart of all his films is melodrama: the heart-tugging pull of a boy afraid of dead people, a normal guy coming to grips with his super powers, a failed holy man regaining his faith, a group striving to protect its long-held traditions … and so on.

Meld that melodrama with a gimmick - a character who doesn’t realize that he’s already dead, the fact that a normal guy actually does have super powers, alien and crop circles and people dressing up in scary monster costumes - and you have Shyamalan’s formula. Thing is, until now it’s been a formula that functions pretty well, especially when you compare it to most of the rest of the crap that Hollywood spoon-feeds us.

But the cracks in the Shyamalan style have been showing for a while, now. “The Lady in the Water” had no point (or maybe it tried to make so many points that none of them registered). “The Happening” was, in a word, absurd (and for the first time, it felt … sloppy?) And in “The Last Airbender,” the flaws are almost too many to count.

First of all, for those of us who haven’t seen the television show (or read the based-on-the-movie graphic novel), “The Last Airbender” doesn’t make a lot of sense. There are so many references to a larger history, etc., that they all tend to get mixed up. And what’s with the casting, at least of the kids, which seemed to depend a lot more on mainstream tastes than any attempt to find some actual talent?

Also, I stopped counting at a half-dozen the many other movies that Shyamalan borrowed from. Here’s a short list: “The Lord of the Rings,” “Star Wars,” “The Neverending Story,” “Batman Begins,” “The Karate Kid,” “The Chronicles of Narnia.” And that’s just where I stopped.

Finally, Shyamalan’s personal style, based so much on quality filmmaking, seems to have deserted him. Or maybe a better way of putting that is that he has left that trademark style behind. Since it hasn’t been working for him of late, you can’t blame him. But what if he has nothing to take its place? That’s what “The Last Airbender” feels like: nothing less than an imcomprehensible mess. Not even 3-D can help that.

One thing, though. We saw the non-3-D version yesterday at the Village Center Cinemas in Airway Heights. And as we were walking in, and later out, I could heard the groupls of 8-year-old boys talking about how “cooooooollll!” the film was. All those fights, you know.

Seems Shyamalan has found his new audience. And a solution to his problem, which clearly has much less to do with his overall legacy than it does with his continuing to have an actual career. As of this morning, “The Last Airbender” had made a solid $16 million in ticket sales.

Introducing the new M. Night Shyamalan, Nickelodeon genius.

Below : The trailer for “The Last Airbender.”