An episode of 'Outer Limits' stretched to two hours...

Rating: 2/10 (10 July 2008)

And I mean stretched. The pace - well, there is no pace. The whole movie is at a standstill. How many slow tracking shots of people doing mundane things are there in 'The Village'? Because if you are forced to sit through it because, say, your fiancée loves it, or you are trapped in M. Night Shyamalan's house, it might help you through this turgid melodrama to try counting. That's the worst problem. The second problem is that Bryce Howard can't act. Well, she can act, but only at the same level - no light or shade. You never believe she is blind for a minute, only that she's stepped out of an amateur production of 'Hamlet' by mistake. The third problem is that there's not enough story. That's why after fifteen minutes you start to get restless and pick holes in the thing. Guessing the twist? It's not hard to guess WHAT it is, only the 'why' is different. The fact that ********SPOILER************ the village is a wildlife (p)reserve for the wealthy families of the victims of urban crime is all the story there is. In the longeurs at the beginning, you start to wonder how they live, where all the oil comes from and why the 'elders' of the village are all under fifty. Shyamalan is too busy trying to create atmosphere to bother creating authenticity, which The Village completely lacks. In Witness they took the trouble to explain the commercial life of the Amish, for example, and that gave it a reality within the movie. This community never gets remotely believable. If The Village had been an episode of 'The Outer Limits' or 'X-Files' even, it would probably have been a classic. But it's ninety minutes too long. Oh, and I thought Lucius's colour must have been red. Blood, you see. The fact that they left his fate open is an acknowledgment that the twist isn't strong enough to close the story.