Beyond disappointing

Rating: 1/10 (2 February 2005)

I usually do not comment on a movie I don't like but this one was beyond anything I could imagine. I do think that M Night's style is interesting but outside of that, this movie failed on all accounts. I think that Howards performance was retched. I keep hearing people praise her performance as a great performance and one of the only redeeming points of the movie, but I cannot disagree more. She looks people in the eye when she speaks with them and it took me a while to realize that she was blind. I cannot respect a character who will put up with a totalitarian style government such as the one in this town. They try to pawn off Phoenix's character as a person with will unlike anyone else in the town. If he had such a will, he would have taken matters into his own hands and left the village without the blessing of the elders.
I don't even want to start with the ending because it is completely incomprehensible for something like this to happen. I read the ending when it was leaked on the net about a year ago. I was under the impression that they went back and re shot the ending so I was looking for something different. It was a horrid ending when I read it then and it was a horrid ending when I viewed it now. To tie all this off, I hated this movie. M. Night, stop trying to trip us up with a surprise ending and just make a solid movie. I liked The Sixth Sense and I loved Unbreakable, but Signs and The Village just irritated me. Just make a good movie and stop trying to be quirky. I know that you can make a good movie.