Bad advertising does not excuse a poor film

Rating: 3/10 (29 December 2005)

I love Shyamalan's films. His ability to take extraordinary events and place them in a very ordinary context, with true Everymen as the protagonists is a challenge indeed and he, usually, pulls it off marvelously. The dark, gritty, unpolished look of his films adds a sense of realism to otherwise impossibly bizarre tales of ghosts, aliens, gods and superheroes. The Village, however poorly advertised, does not amount to anything more than one massive anticlimax.
The film is pitched as a supernatural thriller (no doubt to play on the spectacular success of films like The Sixth Sense and Signs). Fair enough. And "twist" endings are fun, in general, God knows Shyamalan is a master in the field. However, that said, when your "twist" ending is to undo the magic, the intrigue, the mystery of the film without replacing it with something of equal or greater value, you're left with a remarkably, painfully disappointed viewer. Everything that could have possibly worked in favor of this film came to a mind- numbing, insipid halt as the "twist" ending revealed the truth to the characters locale and historical context, deflating any and all hope of the supernatural and leaving us with yet another tale of misguiding good intentions and the decisions of a few old patriarchs and matriarchs that derail their children from reality.
Blah, blah, blah. It was a boring film made all the worse by Shyamalan's taking a knife and stabbing his plot squarely in the eye, bleeding this film dry of the only thing that made it interesting; his realistic take on yet another interesting supernatural event. These decisions are inherent in the film itself and the blame cannot be placed squarely on the shoulders of a marketing/trailer campaign that pitched the film as something it was not.
A few good moments, some talented actors (mostly wasted talent), cannot overcome what is quite simply a very, very boring film with an overdone moral and absolutely nothing new and fresh to offer.