Twisting M Night Away!

Yesterday, I saw the film, Now You See Me. I enjoyed the film for the most part, but it had a "twist" ending that I don't feel was fair to the audience. Speaking of twist endings, I ignored M Night (I can't spell the rest) and his new Will Smith film After Earth. I don't know if there was a twist ending because I don't know anyone who actually saw the film.

There really are only two major twists in literature-- someone you think is dead is really alive or someone you think is good is really bad. Luke I am your father is as good as it gets.

There are twists on the twists-- in Night's Sixth Sense, someone who you think is alive is really dead. In Fight Club, someone you think is alive is really an imaginary Brad Pitt. In Crying Game, someone you think is good really has a penis.

The writer or film maker has to play fair to make it work. I do NOT like stories when a character is presented as impotent--even when they are alone-- and then they turn into someone with all kinds of powers. That happened in Now You See Me, and it seemed to come out of nowhere.

I also don't like what I call the CSI twist. After the CSI agents check something on a computer, they find that a minor character really has a motive to be the killer. You've heard of Deus Ex Machina, --God out a machine--where in Greek drama a god literally comes down and solves the problems of an unruly plot. Well, in CSI we get the twistus ex machina. There's no way we in the audience could know that the butler's cat was run over by the dead person's mother and the butler has been plotting revenge for the last twenty years.

I do like the "Dorothy" twist-- the main character finds out that he or she has the powers within her all along. Perhaps we all like that twist, because we are all hoping that it happens to us.

So keep on twisting the night away. Except for you M Night, your twisting days are over, after earth indeed.