Worth a viewing

Rating: 6/10 (19 September 2011)

Shyamalan tries to be a latter day Hitchcock - even down to his cameos. Unfortunately he is lacking something. I've seen Hitchcock's 'Psycho' numerous times and despite knowing the ending I am still compelled to see it again. Meanwhile, I've seen Shyamalan's 'Sixth Sense' once and am not compelled to see it again. Both movies have twisty endings but nothing in the performances, nuances, camera angles, etc., manage to make me want to see 'Sixth Sense' again. The same holds true for 'The Village'. It's a good story. Everyone in the cast does a good job and the plot twists are very interesting - yet, after the movie ends I don't feel like I've just seen a 'great movie' with layer upon layer of subtle and magnetic character idiosyncrasies. It's all fairly straightforward ultimately. Besides, I pretty much figured it out long before the end. Something didn't quite gel in the props department for me to believe that this was supposed to take place in the time period implied. In all honesty I did think about the film quite a bit afterward. I was mostly wondering how it would hold itself together --- enough on that though. Bottomline: It's a film worthy of a viewing - definitely, but it's like Chinese food -- you'll be hungry in an hour and not necessarily for more Chinese food. I gave it a 6 simply because there is little replay value. It is at least a 7 though.