Thoroughly entertaining but by no means a masterpiece

Rating: 6/10 (2 October 2008)

The various reviews of The Village by IMDb members follow the usual - and I am bound to say, rather unchivalrously - American pattern: it seems this is regarded either as a work of quite unparallelled genius (as in 'this week's work of quite unparallelled genius') or it stinks so much to heaven that it's a wonder the writer, director and chief bottle washer dares show his face in public. But that's the Americans for you: never like to do anything by halves. This rather reserved - Americans might say buttoned up, but they would be wrong - Brit thinks The Village is a rather entertaining, well-made horror flick, but which, at the end of the day, pulls is punches. In hindsight, the plot is so full of holes, if it were a fishing net, a shark would have no trouble escaping. But that is in hindsight: while you are watching, from the spooky opening funeral to the final scene, its rather good, very entertaining, will quite often send a pleasant chill down your spine and will keep you guessing right until the end. It is, in fact, a difficult film to write about because revealing only one of the plot twists would rather spoil the viewing of someone who is seeing it for the first time. So just let me repeat: there are twists aplenty and anyone who knows where it will all end at any point is a better man than I am. The saintly Roger Ebert gave it a very sniffy review when it was first released in 2004, and although I understand the points he raise, his judgement does seem unnecessarily stern. (And his judgement might well be questioned by asking just how much attention he was paying. He did, after all, get one plot point very wrong. The village idiot was the heroine's brother, not just some unrelated village idiot.) Certainly, this has more in common with a shaggy dog story than Macbeth, but then who says that is a crime. Look, I'm struggling to describe this film without giving anything away. Every time I think of a point, I realise that making it might ruin the film for the first-time viewer. So just let me end by saying that everyone from Joaquin Phoenix through Ron Howard's daughter to William Hurt and Sigourney Weaver acquits themselves well, Roger Deakins photography is, as usual, great, and even if the film does, in a way, cheat by (at least to this viewer) by making out it is raising a few quite interesting moral points, only to drop them one by one unceremoniously without a second thought, you could do a lot worse than spend 103 minutes watching The Village. Expect a solid piece of entertainment, not a masterpiece.