Lame and Uninspiring

Rating: Null/10 (14 August 2004)

(Spoilers, of course)
I haven't "given-up" on Shyamalan yet. I really liked "The Sixth Sense," and "Unbreakable" was a decent film too, if not as good as TSS. "Signs" had some great scenes and moments of suspense, even if it had gaping plot holes (aliens killed by WATER??? The essential building block of all life in the universe???)
But "The Village" has almost nothing to offer. Besides a few eerie scenes, it can't be considered a "horror film" for very long. And it has a "big twist" that, unlike "6th Sense" or "Unbreakable," this time I saw coming.
We are introduced to a bizzarely timeless village. It resembles a village in Colonial America in the 1600's, but then we see a tombstone that states it is the 1890's. So what is the purpose then, of this outpost? Why do they act more like colonial pilgrims than people from the turn of the century? Nobody we meet has much of a defined role, and we know little about how these people live. Nobody makes a very strong impression (although Adrien Brody really tries to, disappointingly bad after his outstanding performance in "The Pianist")
We learn early on about "those we do not speak of," monsters whom the village is at war with, and get a brief glimpse of the creatures shortly afterward. At about the half-way point we learn that we have been cheated out of the horror-film that we were expecting, and find that those monster-creatures are an illusion to keep the occupants of the village within its boundaries. I understand that Shyamalan wants to shock us, but couldn't he at least do it by sticking to the same genre? At that moment, I thought the "big twist" was abundantly clear; the adults speak of the "outside world" and talk about how important it is that their children not learn of it. I also caught that the adults seem to drop their way of speaking at this point, too. They have also mentioned the evils of money and wealth.
As young Ron Howard's daughter makes her way to the outside world, I kept waiting for her to come across a Pepsi-can, or some other hint that would give us the twist. When it does come, surprise-surprise, with a jeep and a park ranger, some of the theatre was surprised. I expected it to come this way, so obviously I wasn't shocked.
When a writer is in his earliest stages of brainstorming, he often comes up with a concept that he likes. After thinking more and more about it, he may come across plot-holes or other elements that convince him that the story is not worth writing, and that he should dump the idea and move on to other things. Shyamalan should have dumped this idea in this stage, because it doesn't work--it's stupid! When learning of these people's history, we are supposed to believe that this is their backstory for forming some timeless cult in the woods of Pennsylvania? This idea is dumb and unbelieveable. Why couldn't they just join up with the Amish? Each adult in the village has an explanation of why they are there, and none of them are genuine--they are all just weak excuses to pull a lame twist on the audience that we would never find believeable in the first place.
Grade: D-