The Ultimate "C'mon" movie (Spoilers Below)

Rating: 3/10 (27 August 2004)

To be uncharacteristically succinct, I think "The Village" was an inept melange of "The Truman Show", "The Twilight Zone", "The Prisoner", and "Scooby Doo" (the elders would have gotten away with it too, were it not for the meddling kids Lucius and Ivy). Admittedly, its themes of secure utopia (and the lengths people will reach to preserve it) and the "woods as labyrinthine hell" metaphor were intriguing and thought-provoking, but I felt M. Night Shyalaman's framework for presenting these themes was too contrived, attenuated,inept and inconsistent to be effective. As a 30-minute "Twilight Zone" episode, the premise would have had more shocking impact. As a feature-length movie, it appeared amateurish and pretentious instead, with too many plot and logic holes. Perhaps Mr. Shyalaman should have presented his themes in a straightforward way, without "the past is really the present" or "it was Earth all along - god damn you all to hell" twist, and really achieved the ultimate twist of having no twist.
One can forgive a movie's lapses in logic if they are infrequent and the movie is basically intelligent and entertaining, but I felt "The Village" is truly neither. The dialogue is self-consciously excruciatingly pompous, the characters' actions stupefying (i.e. Lucius has been stabbed twice in the abdomen; his life is dribbling away, will SOMEBODY get the medicine already? and "Ivy, get down in the cellar already?"), the "monsters" shoddily anthropomorphic and the ending inert. I did like the atmosphere and cinematography, however, but small compensation for this "house of cards" movie. To play devil's advocate for a moment, perhaps Mr. Shyalaman deliberately made his movie imperfect to inspire thoughtful commentary and discussion (is THIS the ultimate twist?)
Now I present a list of plot/logic lapses designed to prompt "C'mon" responses:
1. Could even a billionaire arrange to prevent airplanes from flying over the woodlands preserve?
2. Those poles the villagers were painting the mollifying color yellow sure looked like telephone poles.
3. Would you put a monster suit in a cellar where the village idiot would have ready access to it?
4. Would any rational, humane person send a blind girl (no matter how stereotypically pure and resourceful, since of course blind people are always above reproach, unflinchingly brave, and possess extrasensory perception - is she Daredevil's daughter?) alone into the woods for medicine? That is cruel and unusual punishment violating the 8th amendment!
5. To protect the "idyllic", "pristine" village from the encroachment of evil civilization, wouldn't you need an army of security personnel? Only one appears in the movie and, even though he's apparently a novice, he seemed inert.
6. Cut off from the outside world, how can the village sustain itself for any period of time? Wouldn't the inhabitants go mad being restricted to the village limits? Curiosity will ultimately surmount fear.
7. As my friend Joe Flynn, who watched the movie with me, said, "Wouldn't some stoned teenagers trespass into the woodland preserve and stumble upon the village?" Exactly.
If I had to rate this movie, I would give it a 3/10. Still, in its maladroit way, "The Village" stimulates thought, which is more than you can say for many movies that are otherwise more efficient and entertaining!