The Visit (2015) · 7:29am Sep 11th, 2015
You ever notice that the parents of any of the main characters of MLP really aren't that engaged in the lives of their children or vice versa? Now I realize that in some cases like with the Apple family where the parents are dead this would happen. We know that Rarity's parents abandoned Sweetie Belle at Carousel Boutique because they had a vacation planned that they haven't gotten back from yet. We know that Twilight Sparkle's parents exist but, outside of that we know very little about their personalities. The Pie family are apparently rather taciturn and farm rocks (Now I have seen dirt farms before while driving through certain rural portions of the country so why not). We don't really know anything about Rainbow Dash's family or Fluttershy's.
I think that it's time the parents came forward, even if just a little bit. I mean, Twilight Sparkle HAS a large castle. She could host a Hearth's Warming Eve gathering her family. All sorts of craziness could happen with setting up travel arrangements, Mom and Dad not wanting to impose, Cadence and Shining Armor being iffy on the proposition initially what with the Crystal Empire to run and all but, they all come together eventually. Meanwhile Spike who, is more or less adopted into the family could find an old photo album and they all kind of gather around it and look at some of the pictures. Twilight's mom and dad could reminisce just a bit about maybe how they met and maybe thought they'd lost a certain photo. Stuff like that.
Each year you could kind of do that sort of special but with a different focus. One could be on getting a loving family together, another could be about doing charity for others, heck Pinkie Pie could have one where the Pies and the Cakes get together as a sort of blended dessert family type of deal. Fluttershy could introduce her best buddy Discord to her family for the holiday. Rainbow Dash might not be able to make it home for the holiday and instead shows up at the Apple family's place or something. There are a lot of options here to introduce these characters and for a show that is supposed to be geared toward kids and families this seems like a no brainer.
Of course not every family should get together for the holidays, or even at all. The new M. Night Shyamalan movie, The Visit kind of showcases that. In the movie two kids, Becca and Tyler, are sent to visit grandmother and grandfather at their farm. They've never seen them before due to the fact that their mother had a falling out with them years before they were born. Considering the odd behavior of the two old folks I can't say I blame her too much.
This movie isn't perfect as so few things in the world are. But in some respects it's a movie that feels like a bit of a comeback for Shyamalan, whose career has been in free fall since he made The Village. The acting is pretty good, the plot is fairly solid though the tone does get a little weird at times. I think part of that has to do with the handheld camera thing. It's never as scary as it wants to be but, at the same time I thought it was funny when it meant to be. The ending felt a bit forced but, overall this is a movie that is worth a rental or if you want to see it in theaters see it at the discount time. I saw it for free because The Man From U.N.C.L.E was apparently broken at my theater so they comped me. Anyway, like I said it's worth a shot.
The Stats
5 Dead Bodies
1 1/2 naked old woman butts
3 White Boy Rap Songs (ho)
2 Handheld video cameras
1 Laptop
9:30 Bedtime
Glass Fu
Rope Fu
Adult Diaper Fu
Oven Fu
Knife Fu
Refrigerator Fu
Crazy old people Fu
Carribean Cruise Fu
Gratuitious use of Pop Star Names
Shout outs:
Olivia DeJonge as Becca the know it all older sister freaks out old people with questions like, "Do you remember why mom left?"
Ed Oxenbould as Tyler the would be rapper who has over 300 hits on youtube and says "Shit don't taste like chicken!"
Deanna Dunagan as Nana who grunts and growls like an animal and says things like, "Would you get inside the oven to clean it?"
and Peter McRobbie as Pop Pop for being unusually strong and saying, "You have a magic spell on you," and "I am the seer!"
lol, sometimes I forget Shyamalan's still at it.
His hold on me grew tenuous after I realized the shock-ending schtick in Unbreakable was not so different from that in The Sixth Sense. But he lost me after casting himself as a brilliant visionary of some kind in Lady in the Water. (Which... was almost 10 years ago, apparently.)
It was kind of like a self-insert OC story where the OC is dating all the mane 6 at the same time... ut's probably satisfying for the creator, but it's painfully self-indulgent for the viewer.
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Well, to be honest I felt that Unbreakable was way too similar to The Sixth Sense. It had the same lead actor, the people looked the same etc. I didn't dislike it but, if it had come before The Sixth Sense I would have liked it better. Is there a "twist" in this movie? Yeah but, I felt it was a minor one. Whether it was there or not actually didn't effect the outcome.
Fortunately though, I will say that M. Night Shyamalan and his acting are nowhere to be seen in this movie and he just sticks to being the writer/director. I know when he first started doing that stuff it was as a nod to Hitchcock who used to pop up in his own movies (though it was always, man walking down the street, man in clothing ad type of stuff). So the movie has that going for it!