This Hit M. Night Shyamalan Kids Movie Has an Incredibly Low Rotten Tomatoes Audience Score

M. Night Shyamalan made his directorial debut in 1992 with the semi-autobiographical film “Playing with Anger,” a film that — despite the director’s eventual fame and success — remains obscure. He achieved this by borrowing money from family and friends, so it was a very personal matter. Shyamalan asked his parents to serve as associate producers on his next film, “Wide Awake,” which ended up getting a nice distribution deal from Miramax Films. In 1999, Shyamalan wrote and directed “The Sixth Sense,” a $40 million film that grossed an unexpected $672 million at the box office. It also won six Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Screenplay.

And that was only part of Shyamalan’s success in 1999. He had also managed to land a few high-profile writing deals for major Hollywood studios; he edited the teen comedy “She’s All That” and, more relevant to this article, co-wrote the screenplay for Rob Minkoff’s “Stuart Little,” a family film based on the famous EB White novel.

White’s 1945 novel, “Stuart Little,” was about a little human boy a few inches tall named Stuart who looked almost exactly like a mouse. In the book, Stuart is born into a human family and displays extraordinary intelligence, being as intelligent as a teenager at the age of seven. Because he is so small, he can help with household chores, even if he clashes with the family cat. In the film, Stuart (voiced by Michael J. Fox) is adopted by a human family (Geena Davis, Hugh Laurie, Jonathan Lipnicki).

The film was a success, grossing over $300 million on a budget of $133 million, but it was criticized by audiences online. On Rotten Tomatoes, audiences only gave it a 41% approval rating.

It is worth noting that “Stuart Little” received quite warm praise from critics. It holds a 67% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes (based on 95 reviews), with reviews split between thinking it harmless and thinking it bland. A movie like “Stuart Little” is a middling Hollywood product, with slick production values, a few big stars, a few funny jokes and just enough charm to keep kids interested. There don’t appear to be any of Shyamalan’s signature plot twists or whimsical humor incorporated into the film.

Audiences liked “Stuart Little” enough to make it a modest success, but not enough to give it good reviews. The 41% audience approval rating (based on over 250,000 audiences) seems, overall, to make “Stuart Little” seem sadly insignificant. Audience reviews are, of course, random and usually only a few words long, but the general feeling seems to be that “Stuart Little” is sweet and cute, but also a little boring. Stuart, it should be noted, was made via then-advanced CGI, and his design was to make him more mouse-like than in the book. There was also less in the film about Stuart’s ingenuity, making him more of a romantic romp than an intelligent aberration.

As such, audiences seem to think that “Stuart Little” didn’t have much to offer. It was enough of a success to warrant a sequel, “Stuart Little 2” (2002), also directed by Minkoff, but not written by Shyamalan. The “Sixth Sense” director also did not participate in the direct-to-video animated sequel “Stuart Little 3: Call of the Wild” (2006). Michael J. Fox played Stuart in all three, and Davis, Laurie and Lipnicki also participated.

In 2002 and 2006, Shyamalan was busy with “Signs” And “Lady in the water” respectively.