Not as bad as I thought

Rating: 5/10 (22 September 2012)

I had heard a lot of bad things about The Village, capped off by the fact someone blurted out the 'twist ending' to me shortly after it was released . I blame Shyamalan for that as much as the person who did the blurting: People talk, and too many (all!) of Shyamalan's movies depend on a 'twist at the end.'
So when I finally saw The Village I had very low expectations indeed. The good news is: I wasn't disappointed. It was better than expected.
M. Night Shyamalan's master plan seems to be to make each one of his movies half as good as the one before but even when he makes a bad movie (which is often these days), it's hard to notice because the cinematography, the acting, the scenery, the music are so good you don't notice. ('The Happening' however was 'A Bridge too Far'. :-)
As usual, two things bring Shyamalan down: Gaping holes in the plot, and his own cameo performances.
The plot holes are a major problem. I liked the idea that the main character was a blind girl. She was interesting and I thought she was well played, but why send a blind girl into the woods? I get lost in the woods and I'm fully sighted! Too often Shyamalan rushes off and shoots a movie without first filling in the plot holes. The last minute retro-fixes he adds by narration (by no less than his cameo) are unconvincing.
Shyamalan is a lousy actor, and the cameos destroy the suspension of disbelief the audience is trying so hard to maintain by overlooking his glaring plot holes. Besides ego, why does he keep ruining his movies by doing this? The film has good production qualities. William Hurt and Bryce Dallas Howard turn in good performances, but other actors are underused. Sigourney Weaver barely opens her mouth.
Moral dilemmas are poorly explored: There are many, many children in this movie. Surely one of them needed a pediatrician by now? Why does Joaquin Phoenix's character merit an exception when the sick children didn't? Shyamalan has a line of dialog that suggests he was the victim of a crime where as the children died because it was 'their time'. You're kidding me?
When will movie studios understand that mis-marketing a movie is a recipe for disaster? Fight Club was mis-marketed to the WWF crowd, and The Village was mis-marketed as a Horror Film. This attracted and then alienated the wrong audience. There is some suspense, but it's subdued: We never get a sense of fear for the creatures, and even when we meet the guard he's too damned nice too fast. Gosh I like nice people too, but it just wasn't convincing.
The Village is more like an episode of the Twilight Zone. I wasn't bored, so would give it six out of ten. But I'm deducting a point for the plot holes and the cameo. That's a bit harsh, but this is Shyamalan's fourth major movie so he really should know better by now.