Village Idiots

Rating: 2/10 (19 April 2006)

Thankfully, I saw this movie on television and did not spend money for viewing it in the movie theatre but long ago Okay, folks it is time to pull the trap door under M. Night Shamalamadingdong. Bring out the ole vaudeville hook too; anything get rid of this sucker.
The movie plot is too simple to be interesting. The characters are not well developed. The flick has some of the best actors in the industry and yet we do not see enough of them. I feel as though the whole film was made to focus on Bryce Howard; not her character but Howard, herself.
It is also very annoying that all the actors seem to talk in a soft monotone that is hard to make out. I suppose the sound was better in the theatre but on DVD or on the TV it is not a pleasant experience to keep having to turn up the volume.
Why would you go to the trouble and expense to hire some really big box office actors and then hobble them with lame dialogue and incomplete character development? Why would you rather shoot dismal scenery than these wonderful actors? I would have rather seen more of Joaquin Phoenix and Adrien Brody than I saw of mudslides, water, leaves and scary outlines of tree branches.
The ending is ridiculous; Bryce Howard goes through trials and tribulations and gets fantastically muddy-dirty-nasty but in the end she is clean as a newborn babe....come on!