"The Village"- No Spoilers

[Mike Moncrief]

Hello,

Saw the movie "The Village" today.. I am a big fan of M. Night Shyamalan.. (he lives in the county I grew up in) It was a very good movie, but certainly not a great movie..
Moved a little slow in the first hour..One thing that puzzled me especailly in the first half hour or so,and made me question the movie was the lack of firearms, especailly considering the timeframe established on the tombstone.....Of course later it becomes more apparent why the lack of firearms..I think Ron Howards daughter played a terrific role..M Night did a good job of building tension, and except for the first hour, the pacing was good.He does a lot with very little..The only other criticism I have was the bahavior of Adrian Brody in the woods late in the movie, (trying to not give anything away here) was really not at all consistent with his earlier behavior..
But overall the movie was enjoyable, and even after several hours since seeing the film, i am still thinking about the movie..
3.5 stars out of 5


My 2 cents,,

Mike M

This is just my humble opinion folks, nothing more nothing less..

[Rob Belics]

The major newspaper here gave it 1/4. Says it "treats us like idiots" and the ending "is an enormously stupid twist that's calculated to keep us from counting the plot holes until the drive home".

I guess he didn't like it.

[Brack Craver]

I also saw it and have to say I thought it was terrible.

[Yi Fong Yu]

joaquin is a great actor. imho he's up there with ed norton, pitt, newer generation of 'greats' =).

anyway re: M Night's films. i always though his films were too slow for their own good. sixth sense was nice pace. there was always something happening. unbreakable and night's later films suffers from too much self importance. it's so damned slow like night's trying to show you something, a mood maybe? i don't know what but it just ain't working. there's no POINT to some of the uber-slow scenes. most of unbreakable can be condensed, but then it'll be merely a 15minute movie... which is what night does best. taking a 15minute idea and stretching it into 2+ hours!!!! it's a rental for me just out of curiosity's sake.

[Christopher C. Murphy]

I actually liked it, but the only part I didn't like was the final "reveal" lasted to long afterwards. It dragged after we found out the truth.

Although, I must say this...the scene in the woods where that thing is standing there and charges her? Damn, that was goooood....everyone jumped to the roof at that one.

Murph

[Joe Calalang]

I enjoyed it. Spoiler : click and drag to reveal my spoilage! :D

What I got from Night's movie is that in every place people try to go, they will always find misery. Sure this was done in other movies before. But yet the movie still kept my interest.

There's a lot of subtle things that are right there before you to pick out. Such as how the Elders spoke in a modern tone when they were alone. They would use contractions like "Won't" and "Isn't" yet when around they younger generation, they would switch back to the old English Victorian language of the late 1800's.

I also like how the game warden placed the pocket watch on the rear view mirror. A vision of the past?

Many people will dog this movie but ironically, most converstations will be a hell of a lot deeper than those who came out from Spiderman 2. I hear people talk about the Village's cinematography, acting, pacing.....whereas Spiderman 2: guys are like "Did you see Kirsten's boobies!" and the ladies will say "Toby McGuire is sooo cute!"*winks*

[Matt Elias]

I had high expectations going into this movie. I had heard much about this great "twist." To my own surprise I figured out the first twist early on in the film. As for the major twist, it was easily expected once the movie got going. I remember thinking, "Man if this happens (insert twist here) this movie is going to be rediculous."

Night could have taken the movie in several directions. I credit him as a great user of suspense - some points reminded me of Hitchcock. He also seemed to be building quite a love story between Ivy and Lucius, which isn't a genre I usually enjoy. Maybe Night has potential in putting together a good love story in the future. But in this film he didn't spend enough time on the romance, moreover it didn't have much of a place in the film.

After the movie another friend of mine and I made a pact to tell everyone what a great movie it is and not to pay attention to any negative things they hear about it - then they can witness first hand how stupid it is.

I still have an urge to see it again to determine hints of the twist, just like the 6th Sense.

[Christopher C. Murphy]

It was stupid to a point, but he's getting a bad rap. The poor guy has that success burden happeing. He's gotten successful from a few specific things...twist being the main one.

We gotta give the guy a break - he actually put together a GREAT movie compared to some of the CRAP Hollywood dumps on us all the time. Myself personally, I didn't know the twist until later in the movie...so, I was excited until then. The only thing that bugged me a little was the dragging of the ending...it should have wrapped up quicker.

Also, I have to give it to M Night for making such American type movies. He has grasped Americana quite well...look at Signs and now Village. They both have an American breathe to it. Am I the only one who sees his insight? It's not a big deal, but he's doing a great job for being Indian. I don't know any Indian directors myself, so he's someone I am keen to watch grow. (I know, I should rent some Bollywood movies!! Yeah, whatever...we should all do something or other!)

By the way, did anyone read Roger Eberts review? I read it after I saw the film - of course! But, it's plain nasty....he gave it a 1 star and ripped it to shreds. It was a little unfair, I thought...go read it if you have time.

Murph

[Yi Fong Yu]

this isn't directed to joe but is directed to those that think the movie is great. you guys keep saying "it's better than the crap, like spiderman out there, bla bla bla." but thus far i haven't read any specific thing that he did to deserve that praise. in retrospect, would you say the same words you are saying here,, say.... 6 months from now? i mean i remember saying that 6th sense is a classic right after i came out of the cinema... but... i don't feel that way today.

oh and regards to pace... if you think what he does is great... then all of us could just setup the camera, let it roll for 1/2 hour just having the actor walking around reciting so-so lines without cutting at all and proclaim that as the greatest thing before the 2nd coming. i dunno about you but i like when a director uses (like hitchcock) purposefully does it. but when night does it he just does it to show off. that's th problem. also if you look at hitchcock, he does cut for th most part to maintain a sense of pace. look at north by northwest's field scene. lots of cutting there!


<<<-- Originally posted by Joe Calalang : I enjoyed it. Spoiler :
Many people will dog this movie but ironically, most converstations will be a hell of a lot deeper than those who came out from Spiderman 2. I hear people talk about the Village's cinematography, acting, pacing.....whereas Spiderman 2: guys are like "Did you see Kirsten's boobies!" and the ladies will say "Toby McGuire is sooo cute!"*winks* -->>>

[Brack Craver]

First, apologies to anyone who saw this movie and liked it.
I judge a movie based on what it's aiming for. The Village tries to achieve a certain level of profundity and falls way short. Yes, the cinematography and score are great. But if you want to see truly amazing cinematography watch something like Winged Migration. And in a 60 million dollar movie like The Village the least I would expect is a decent DP and composer. Unbelievably pretentious, boring, and ridiculous- these are the three things that I think best sum up The Village. This was the film that finally revealed to the general public that M. Night Shyamalan is no genius. A competent filmmaker perhaps- but no Hitchcock. Shyamalan needs to put down the pen and maybe adapt someone elses screenplay for a change. His script had so many holes I found it laughable. It's just a bad- really bad film. Edited to say I criticized Shyamalan for being pretentious but I just realized my post is pretentious. Did I actually use the word "profundity"! Sheeeeeeez, I need to get some sleep.

[Luis Caffesse]

Just to add to the noise here.. I just got back from the theater.

I tried, honest to God I tried to like this movie.
But, it wasn't just me, the audience wouldn't let me...

People were laughing throughout the film, at points that obviously were not meant to be humerous.

All I heard were complaints as we walked out.
And, I can say, I was one of the ones complaining as well.

What frustrates me the most is that usually when I see a bad movie, it is bad at the core. The Village actually has a concrete idea that could have made a very interesting and engaging story.
But, unfortunately, now we'll never see that movie... because we're stuck with the one that was made.

Save you 8 dollars, rent it.... or, better yet, get a friend to rent it.
I regret paying for this one.

[Tony Hall]

Here's my review from amazon.com:

I'm not a big fan of M. Night Shyamalan's work, but I have to admit that I really liked this movie. I didn't think I was going to like it going into the theater and I actually didn't think I was going to like it half way through the movie, but I thought it was great.

This movie is a love story above everything else, but I also believe that it's a metaphor of way our (and other people's) government(ruling class) controls our information and the way we think through complex media control and subtle indoctrination to preserve their way of life and America's interests. I think the monsters represent the way our government uses the fear of terrorism/communism/whatever to keep us in line. I think that "The Village" is just a microcosm of the United States. In the movie, they speak different... just like we speak different than the British... makes you think, huh?

The directing and cinematography were awesome. It's a story about the power of love and a strong political commentary.

[Luis Caffesse]

"a strong political commentary."


Come on Tony. Really?

I'll give you that there is an allagory going on there, obviously.
But what sort of commentary is the film giving us?

I mean, you pretty much nailed everything the film had to say,
and you did it in a few sentences. That's not much 'commentary'

I didn't see anything in it that couldn't be condensed down to a
30 minute twilight Twilight Zone episode
(and that's only about 20 minutes with commercials).

That was exactly my problem, here had a good idea, and just
didn't exploit it or explore it for any sort of real depth.
The 'message' of "The Village" can fit on a bumper sticker.

Unless I'm missing something.

[Yi Fong Yu]

like i said earlier, m's "substance" from 6th sense on to village has always been 15-30min episodes of a TV plot. he just stretches it all out to 2 hrs! it's ridiculous! took me til signs to realize his trickery, but by the looks of the box office not a lot of people have unveiled the truth yet.

[Tony Hall]

That's what's great... if you recognize that this story is an allegory, then you can sit back and think about what M. Night Shyamalan is trying to say with different scenes and characters. Personally, I think M. Night Shyamalan is trying to say that we are innocent and our system is built upon good intentions and the "monsters" that the government uses to scare us aren't real... and I think the whole movie is a major crique of the system.