wanted: staying power

This is one of those movies that people give too much credit to. There is no way that anyone can disagree. The things that make this movie "good" are things that make other movies awful. For example, Bruce Willis is in it. This is before Disney's The Kid, so don't go telling me the man needed to legitimize his career. The movie starts out with a nice evening soiree. A wife gets a bottle of wine, goes upstairs, and celebrates a lovely night with her curiously depression era dressed husband. Now they're all happy about him being an award-winning child phsychologist.

Of course, our hero didn't fix all children. As a matter of fact, he failed to help at least one. The star of our show: Donnie Wahlberg. Listen to me. I like Donnie Wahlberg. He nails this perfromance. A lot of other people do too, but the annoying-factor of the people make them all a little hard to appreciate. Bruce Willis, again, who's downright awful. We have no just way of appreciating his presence at all in this time because he's doing a guest spot on the staple show of the 20-something-year-old who stole his wife. That aside, I'm just never impressed by him.

Haley Joel Osment. Here's a kid that people hail as cute. Yes, he can act, but he still bugs me. His performance will probably go down in child acting history, but I find it to be a little cliche. Now listen, Bruce Willis got shot by Mark Wahlberg. Bruce Willis is dead now. Of course Haley Joel Osment can see dead people, so he doesn't know that Bruce Willis is really dead. The series of incidents leading up to that finding is very thought out and specific, but ultimately, you'll often hear me say that it's lame. Lazy would not be a fair word, as it does take a lot of work to get your story out like that. Then again, when you do it for four movies in a row, then I say you're lazy.

M. Night Shyamalan does one thing well: he makes beautiful pictures. Pretty as they may be, I find them tedious. I don't think the Sixth Sense is so good because it lacks staying power. I don't know why anyone would ever buy this DVD. After two views, what more is there to it? You've seen the first time and found out he's dead. You watch the second time and go, "Oh, yeah, I could see how he was dead," and that's it. You could watch the Godfather a ton of times. It's a masterpiece. You could even watch Citizen Kane after you know what rosebud is. Rosebud is a vehicle, not a cop-out. You find out what rosebud is, and it only reveals one more small thing about his character. You surely don't find out that it was a lie the whole time.

Anyway, Bruce Willis tries to help Osment, the kid sees ghosts, he's essentially haunted. The whole time we watch this motherly issue unfold. She's realizing her son's a bit of a nut. Willis sees the same problems in Osment as he did in Wahlberg. Basically, he's trying to cover his ass so he doesn't get killed again. It's weak, yeah.

Suddenly this starts to turn into a TV pilot when we find out the kid talks to dead people and maybe the dead people will leave him alone if he helps them. They're not really bugging him if you ask me. They're kind of just dead and walking or hanging around. It's not like they're pantsing him or trying to scare him. Sure the kid with the hole in his head is scary, but he can't help it. You want him to wear a hat? Will that make you feel better? Jeeze.

Patricia Arquette and Jennifer Love Hewitt aside, Osment ends up helping dead people, then thinks of a way to help Willis. Of course, he thinks he's helping a live person (or does he?) and once Willis connects the pieces he moves on to eternity. Poof-- the end.

Upon my third viewing of the film, it really did seem to be very TV-esque. Sure there was awesome framing and cinematography, but the story is what kills me. It's like a magic trick, really. It's a sleight of hand, and in the end you go "oooh." But do you really like magic? It's more decietful than anything else. Do you really like being tricked? And in the end, when you figure out how the trick is done, doesn't it lose it's luster? Just my feeling. Especially when you find out that water can kill aliens, villages without medicine can exist in modern times, and Samuel L. Jackson is a comic-book villain. Can we say one-trick pony?