fear - faith - love - hope (and spoilers!)

Rating: 9/10 (21 August 2004)

OK, I think Unbreakable is the best of Shyamalan's movies, so no doubt my opinion is immediately worthless to most moviegoers. Apparently a lot of people think The Village is a bad horror movie. Yes, like Casablanca is a bad action movie. Ho hum. How dare Mr Shyamalan create a film that does not fit neatly into a pigeonhole! And as usual there are whinges about the twist and how it is a cheat. It's not a cheat if there's no contradiction. The comments I've read here seem to have ignored the deeply spiritual/religious side of all Shyamalan's work, and that is to the fore here. If you have not seen this movie and wish to be surprised by it, do not read the following sentence: The Village is like The Truman Show, but with Christof inside the bubble. A film that has something to say about how we perceive reality and freedom. What a pity huge numbers of people approach movies with such closed minds.