Pretty Good, M. Night!

Rating: 9/10 (23 June 2006)

Let me start off by saying I liked this movie. To me, The Village was all about atmosphere, and it had plenty of it. The cinematography was more lush than in all the other M. Night's film's combined, and the color contrasts made for a rich viewing experience. Those contrasts along with the interesting shot compositions and long takes with tracking shots made for an fascinating movie from a purely visual perspective. The soundtrack was also another home run, wonderfully evocative. I would see the movie again just to enjoy some of the shots...
The weak link is, of course, the story. Most of what happens is a bit implausible, but I bought it based on the strenghts of M.Night's techniques. I must admit that although I guessed the first twist (the one that dealt with the outside world), I did not guess the twist with the final creature... for a while there, I thought M. was going to have a real creature in the film. Based on that alone, the film worked for me.
Surprisingly, the acting by most of the named stars did not impress me too much, but Bryce Dallas Howard had an outstanding performance. Unfortunately, I thought Adrian Brody went way over the top with his performance. I can see why he was pushed to act so goofy (so that the audience would not realize how dangerous he was), but it struck a wrong note for me.
Overall, I think I would rank this movie as either on par with The Sixth Sense, or even superior to it. I did not feel cheated like I did on the first viewing of The Sixth Sense, and thought the movie was just awesome to look and listen to.