Act Three Reworked (Spoiler, so beware)

Rating: Null/10 (10 August 2004)

M Knight Shyamalan is an interesting and accomplished writer/director but he's not a perfect storyteller. I enjoyed the setup for The Village: a remote rural community has an uneasy truce with monstrous creatures who live in the forest surrounding their community. The borderline is transgressed and the monsters start laying down some heavy warnings (skinned animals, blood daubed on doors - that sort of thing). The three young characters, Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix), Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Owen (Adrien Brody) are very distinctive and interesting. But just when I'm getting ready for a great ending, the third act falls apart.
I want a great ending! So I start thinking what I would have done. Here as I see it are the problems with the third act and my suggestions on how to make it better. See what you think.
1. Lucius, our protagonist, the one driving the story, is stabbed and remains unconscious for the rest of the story. Ivy becomes the new protagonist as she heads off to the town for medicines to save Lucius. COMMENT: this is a radical act of storytelling. We have to be convinced that Ivy, who is blind, has the strength, skill and determination to carry the story to its conclusion. 2) deprives her of the opportunity to prove this to us. 2. Ivy's father tells her the monsters are a myth created by the Elders.
COMMENT: a protagonist should be increasingly active in the third act. Ivy could discover the truth by her own actions when she fights Owen, disguised as one of the monsters, in the woods. 3. John Hurt's speeches decrease in pace and increase in ponderousness.
COMMENT: Please, someone, trim his dailogue and give him a kick up the backside. 4. There is a final twist. Ivy climbs a perimeter fence and lands on a tarmac road. This is the 21st century not 1880's - a potentially brilliant reveal (cf the original Planet of the Apes). COMMENT: this was revealed too quickly. If Ivy comes upon it at night, we could discover step-by-step through sound and touch from her pov that this is the modern world. 5. The present day scenes - getting medicine - are boring and anti-climactic. COMMENT: end the film with Ivy's discovery. The explanation for the existence of the village can be given as a visual epilogue. There, I've probably gone on far too long. But I hope this interests some of you.