To Enter "The Village" or Not To Enter?

Rating: Null/10 (30 July 2004)

To say that I have been PSYCHED beyond belief for the past 4 months about M. Night Shyamalan's newest effort "The Village" would be an understatement. In fact, my entire family was so excited, they actually wanted to battle the crowd and go on OPENING NIGHT.
Now, I also have to say, I am the HUGEST M. Night Shyamalan fan EVER. Being a writer/director myself, I would say that he is probably my biggest idol for his unique story telling and directing abilities. And especially for those "twist endings" he likes to throw in at the end.
Enough of the gushing, on to the review. I have to admit, I went into this flick with some HIGH expectations. I mean like, moon high, expectations. Would I say that the movie met those expectations? I'm gonna have to say no.
While "The Village" does have it's moments where it'll SCARE the crap out of you, it also has it's moments where it'll BORE the crap out of you. For a director so good with his pacing, I felt it may have been a little off this time around.
I also thought his ending was a little off this time around as well. While it was good in a way, I just didn't like how it was executed. To me, I felt that so many other angles could have been explored before we were exposed to what was REALLY going on.
Even some of the actors, I was let down upon. Not because they sucked, they were awesome for the most part, but just because of how much they WEREN'T in the movie. I LOVE Joaquin Phoenix and thought he was AWESOME in "Signs" and I was stoked to see him get top billing in this movie. But don't let that fool you people! You're lucky if you get maybe 30 minutes out of the man. Same goes for Adrien Brody. I like that dude, but for third billing, he's only in it for maybe 5 minutes. I felt if anyone should of gotten top billing it should of been Bryce Dallas Howard. Now what an amazing job she does in this movie. I thought she was WONDERFUL. And she actually has a ROLE role in the movie. I found her to have the biggest out of all of them and deserved top billing the most.
Now, did I love "The Village"? No. Did I hate "The Village"? No. I had to think about what I actually thought of it for a while after, and I came upon the answer that it was just decent. I mean I LIKED it, but I didn't LOVE it like I have some of his other works. So don't take this as I'm knockin' Night in any way.
Now, will I go see Night's next movie? First in line. But let's just hope his next movie has him exiting "The Village" and entering something not only fresh, but a bit better. "The Bermuda Triangle" anyone?