Conflicted feelings.

Rating: Null/10 (10 September 2004)

Idiotic plot and brilliant technical execution--that sums it up right there.
I've admired Shyamalan's films in the past for their subtle, yet effective, narrative that usually features a twist at the end. I've admired how Shyamalan plays by the rules his films set down and never pulls a fast one on his audience. And now, after all that admiration, I get slapped in the face.
The biggest problem with the village is the ungodly amount of emphasis on 'those we do not speak of' and the amount of time given to the legends of the land. Every city, every town, and every village has its own sets of myths/urban legends/whatever you want to call them--that's a given. Every culture has a set of ghost stories that kids tell one another by firelight--that is a given. Everyone has been there, everyone has done that, so why Shyamalan decides to spend so much time here baffles me.
Our familiarity with this turf would have been a beautiful opportunity for Shyamalan to gracefully exercise the power of suggestion and the effectiveness of letting the audience's imagination play off of minimalistic stimulation. Instead we get something we already know on a broken record, we have the 'unknown' spelled out to us and shown to us over and over again in countless scenes so that the ending is revealed over an hour before it arrives, and we still have to sit through overly obvious narrative made more painful by its repetitive nature.
On the plus side, this is a Shyamalan film, and I still admire his mastery of the technical end of film-making. Beautiful cinematography, wonderful virtuoso score by the great James Newton Howard, incredibly artistic direction. When it comes to painting atmosphere, with weaving a tapestry of visual elements and music, with expression balanced with craft, M. Night Shyamalan stands with the best. My only regret in leaving the theatre was that the writing was so undeserving.