I'll take mine with a twist.
Apr. 21st, 2007 02:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
thatotherpervI just got back from seeing The Reaping. firstly, let me say that going to see it in the daytime because I knew I was going alone was a good move. going so early in the day that I was *the only* soul in the showing was ill advised.
but it got me thinking about the mandatory plot twist of movies in that genre...when the device is effectively used and when it goes horribly wrong.
no specific spoilers for The Reaping under the cut, except for the general complaining about where the movie went lame. there are major spoilers for the plot twists of Sixth Sense, Usual Suspects, Memento, The Village, Unbreakable and Signs for those who haven't seen those movies. but I always put the name of the movie up front, so you can stubbornly shield your eyes and skim down past that one.
it's a device I've used sometimes, so it's something that interests me: that sudden twist at the end of a story that brings unrelated information together in a way you hadn't anticipated, or flips your entire interpretation of meaning.
it can go horribly, horribly wrong, and I'm pretty sure we can all think of examples of that. leave you going "huh?" and "wtf?" instead of "ohhhhhhhh."
this was kind of one of those cases. the movie itself was good for what it was. creepy and twisted and suspenseful and engaging. then we come to a double plot twist at the end. the first had me rolling my eyes with a sense of "did we have to go there?" and "that doesn't even really fit." the second one...from a movie-goers perspective I knew what they were getting at, but if I had just been going straight off the clue, it made no damn sense. at least not on the first pass, and that's what counts
I think one of the problems was that both twists (the first one for sure) took too damn much yapping to make all the pieces fit. the original explanation they'd slowly provided us with originally accommodated all the pieces much better--that's bad. I think the only way a plot twist can work is if the slowly building explanation makes sense but leaves us ill at ease, like something doesn't quite work...then the twist has to be something that swiftly locks it all in place with a instant sense of "yes! of course."
If you can't boil the twist down to one sentence that provides an easy intuitive leap to all the other pieces, then it's not an "of course!" explanation. it's a ".....I guess so." and that ends up being really lame. the good ones have the simplest explanations.
The Sixth Sense: Bruce Willis' character is actually dead.
The Usual Suspects: Kevin Spacey's story was invented from objects present at his interrogation.
Memento: Guy Pearce was the killer who tricked himself into believing he was innocent.
The Village: It's actually set in the modern world.
in all of those movies, the reveal actually requires very little work (or appears to). a sentence, or a flashed series of images, because the twist is intuitive, so we only need prompting, not explaining. it's when lengthy explanations come into play that things go horribly wrong...which is the case with The Reaping, imo. once the killer (or whoever) starts going into a diabolical diatribe about how he hatched his nasty plans, or the equivalent, the thing has really run off the rails.
M Night Shyamalan (creepy and strange as I find him) is generally good at plot twists, which is why I think he's known for them...he's sure as hell not the *only* one using them, but his are generally good, so they leave an impression. but he ran off the rails (again, imo) in the diatribe way with Unbreakable. I've mentally blocked out that movie for the most part because I wanted my $5 back, but right around the time Samuel L Jackson started his long speech about whatever, I really drifted off.
I think a lot of people fail at the big, mind-bending plot twist, so it's kind of exhausting and I wish everyone would stop trying just for the sake of it. there's nothing wrong with a minor twist. the reaping probably could have benefitted from that...left all the original groundwork in place, but given us just one minor turn. I think it would have been a better movie. again, I hate to beat a dead horse with Shyamalan, but I thought the small twist at the end of Signs was really satisfying. the boy's asthma saved his life. it's simple and satisfying and it doesn't change our whole perception...it just gives us a solution we hadn't realized he was laying the groundwork for. sometimes it's refreshing for things to turn out just as we'd been lead to believe. if he had suddenly busted out with the aliens actually being townsfolk dressed up in costumes trying to run off the good Reverend, I *would* have demanded my money back. personally. I would have driven to his house and asked him to cough up $6.50 or whatever it was. and then work some of his creepy voodoo and transport me back in time 2 hours to make up for my time.
anyway. uh. I may have lost my point. I think plot twists are also nifty in genres that don't mandate one, because then it really *is* a shock and a mind-bender.
this is the part where I'm supposed to conclude in a coherent way, but this is why I don't ever write anything that resembles meta...I just kind of sputter out of gas. so...that's all. I'm done now.
while I'm at it I should say, I don't think The Reaping sucked. it was a decent movie and whats-her-face was hot in it. oh! and Indris Elba was in it too, nobody told me. yum. it could have been a genuinely good one if they'd redone the last five minutes. but it was a pretty entertaining way to spend the afternoon.
but it got me thinking about the mandatory plot twist of movies in that genre...when the device is effectively used and when it goes horribly wrong.
no specific spoilers for The Reaping under the cut, except for the general complaining about where the movie went lame. there are major spoilers for the plot twists of Sixth Sense, Usual Suspects, Memento, The Village, Unbreakable and Signs for those who haven't seen those movies. but I always put the name of the movie up front, so you can stubbornly shield your eyes and skim down past that one.
it's a device I've used sometimes, so it's something that interests me: that sudden twist at the end of a story that brings unrelated information together in a way you hadn't anticipated, or flips your entire interpretation of meaning.
it can go horribly, horribly wrong, and I'm pretty sure we can all think of examples of that. leave you going "huh?" and "wtf?" instead of "ohhhhhhhh."
this was kind of one of those cases. the movie itself was good for what it was. creepy and twisted and suspenseful and engaging. then we come to a double plot twist at the end. the first had me rolling my eyes with a sense of "did we have to go there?" and "that doesn't even really fit." the second one...from a movie-goers perspective I knew what they were getting at, but if I had just been going straight off the clue, it made no damn sense. at least not on the first pass, and that's what counts
I think one of the problems was that both twists (the first one for sure) took too damn much yapping to make all the pieces fit. the original explanation they'd slowly provided us with originally accommodated all the pieces much better--that's bad. I think the only way a plot twist can work is if the slowly building explanation makes sense but leaves us ill at ease, like something doesn't quite work...then the twist has to be something that swiftly locks it all in place with a instant sense of "yes! of course."
If you can't boil the twist down to one sentence that provides an easy intuitive leap to all the other pieces, then it's not an "of course!" explanation. it's a ".....I guess so." and that ends up being really lame. the good ones have the simplest explanations.
The Sixth Sense: Bruce Willis' character is actually dead.
The Usual Suspects: Kevin Spacey's story was invented from objects present at his interrogation.
Memento: Guy Pearce was the killer who tricked himself into believing he was innocent.
The Village: It's actually set in the modern world.
in all of those movies, the reveal actually requires very little work (or appears to). a sentence, or a flashed series of images, because the twist is intuitive, so we only need prompting, not explaining. it's when lengthy explanations come into play that things go horribly wrong...which is the case with The Reaping, imo. once the killer (or whoever) starts going into a diabolical diatribe about how he hatched his nasty plans, or the equivalent, the thing has really run off the rails.
M Night Shyamalan (creepy and strange as I find him) is generally good at plot twists, which is why I think he's known for them...he's sure as hell not the *only* one using them, but his are generally good, so they leave an impression. but he ran off the rails (again, imo) in the diatribe way with Unbreakable. I've mentally blocked out that movie for the most part because I wanted my $5 back, but right around the time Samuel L Jackson started his long speech about whatever, I really drifted off.
I think a lot of people fail at the big, mind-bending plot twist, so it's kind of exhausting and I wish everyone would stop trying just for the sake of it. there's nothing wrong with a minor twist. the reaping probably could have benefitted from that...left all the original groundwork in place, but given us just one minor turn. I think it would have been a better movie. again, I hate to beat a dead horse with Shyamalan, but I thought the small twist at the end of Signs was really satisfying. the boy's asthma saved his life. it's simple and satisfying and it doesn't change our whole perception...it just gives us a solution we hadn't realized he was laying the groundwork for. sometimes it's refreshing for things to turn out just as we'd been lead to believe. if he had suddenly busted out with the aliens actually being townsfolk dressed up in costumes trying to run off the good Reverend, I *would* have demanded my money back. personally. I would have driven to his house and asked him to cough up $6.50 or whatever it was. and then work some of his creepy voodoo and transport me back in time 2 hours to make up for my time.
anyway. uh. I may have lost my point. I think plot twists are also nifty in genres that don't mandate one, because then it really *is* a shock and a mind-bender.
this is the part where I'm supposed to conclude in a coherent way, but this is why I don't ever write anything that resembles meta...I just kind of sputter out of gas. so...that's all. I'm done now.
while I'm at it I should say, I don't think The Reaping sucked. it was a decent movie and whats-her-face was hot in it. oh! and Indris Elba was in it too, nobody told me. yum. it could have been a genuinely good one if they'd redone the last five minutes. but it was a pretty entertaining way to spend the afternoon.
