IT'S NOT BAD, BUT...

Rating: Null/10 (4 August 2004)

I have just seen the new MNS film "The Village". I have heard and read almost all the hype and buzz about this film. Everything I've heard, from the advance review of the script at AICN to the article at Creative Screen writing magazine, seemed to suggest that MNS was heading for a fall. Well, it's not bad, but it is deeply flawed film with a lot of strengths and an equal number of weaknesses. As always, he draws good performances from his cast. William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, Joaquin Phoenix, and especially Bryce Dallas Howard in her debut role, make a vivid impression. MNS has not lost his talent for setting up a suspenseful scene. Scenes of fleeing villagers in the dark, glimpses of the "creatures", and an attack in the woods are scary in their own right. The themes of the power of fear and how it can hurt people that live in it are strong and resonant in this post 911-world. However, MNS falls victim to his own weaknesses. Unlike his earlier films, where cryptic dialogue and scenes were powerful because of their place in the normal world, almost EVERY scene has a close-up of some sort, as if to suggest that every word carries weight, which of course, it does not. The fate of Adrian Brody's character will strike many as unnecessary and confusing given his earlier behavior. This defuses the open ending, since Ivy (Howard's character) would be affected by both the "secret" of the village and by the death of Brody's character. Like I said, it's not a bad film, but you wonder if the MNS before the success of "The Sixth Sense" would have had the discipline to fully realize this great idea into a great film. As it stands, "The Village" is merely an okay one. That is the biggest twist of all.