A film for the disciplined mind only!

Rating: Null/10 (13 September 2004)

TNight_1 so far as I can see is the only reviewer got it right. This IS Shyamalan's best film to date. Shame only one in 200,000 people have the mental resources to tap into it.
This never was a horror-film, any more than SIGNS was about aliens. (I have incidentally received over 300 emails worldwide asking me to explain what really DID happen in SIGNS)
Shyamalan is evolving as a precocious talent in all facets of film-making and if he continues at the rate he is...he may even have fifty fans by the end of 2005. I don't know why he bothers. To collar the collective lame-brain reviews that his films do, is merely evidence of how far down the intellectually-appreciative time-line the average viewer is!
The relevance and success of this film is in the WORDS my friends, the superb characterisations that Shyamalan is able to draw out of his cast. Despite her limited screen-time this was one of Sigourney Weaver's greatest performance. LOOK at her, watch her mannerisms...she IS gentle but aware Alice Hunt. Ripley was another time, another place. Similarly, Hurt delivers a powerful and credible performance as the leader of the Amish-inspired community. Phoenix too gives a marvelous, controlled, yet understated reverence to his role as Weaver's son Lucius. As he so pointedly comments at one stage. "This Village has too many secrets."
For all the above though, it is Bryce Dallas Howard that is nothing short of stunning in her debut role. Little wonder Shyamalan knew he had found the right girl when he met her. Headstrong, courageous, so very attractive to anyone who knows quality when they see it, she just elicits sympathy yet admiration for the way in which she handles her disability. Feminine to the last curl yet vulnerable given her youth and inexperience - this was a first-up role of a life-time and she carried it off with the professional flair of any A-list actress. Besides her, Kidman should be re-enrolling at acting school!
As for the one-dimensional viewer seated there, ingesting handfuls of stale popcorn between his Diet Coke, waiting to be scared witless by the forest-creatures.....I have little sympathy for your ultimate disappointment. You had no clue about SIGNS either....what were you thinking? maybe you got intelligent overnight?
Despite those who claim to have seen the 'twist' in THE SIXTH SENSE coming a mile off, (yeah right!) the MENSA graduates who 'figured out' UNBREAKABLE during the first quarter, and now the hordes of cerebrally-challenged patrons who see in THE VILLAGE a 'boring,' 'wooden' film with a 'cop-out' ending, there is thankfully a minority group who grasp what they see. That doesn't include the reviewer so interminably stupid, he even writes he 'didn't know' what the end meant!
William Hurt's character makes it crystal clear for all to understand, when he tells the other elders, 'We have to protect the children's innocence.'
Most of us would be far better off never entering those woods either  look what's on the other side  mainstream humanity!
Sumptuous from a cinematographic viewpoint also, the film shares much common ground with SIGNS. A group seemingly at the mercy of the unknown. A central character dealing with his own emotional overload. Young people in harm's way and the values inherent in communal strength and decency.
Far from the laughable perception that Shyamalan is running on empty with his last couple of films, he is metamorphisising into a Director par excellence. His is the big picture, most critics it would seem, can't even agree on the suitability of the frame!