Ahoy, squirts... Quint here. I just got home from a midnight screening of M. Night Shyamalan's THE VILLAGE. Below I avoid the big spoilers, but I may tread lightly upon some minor spoilers. Fair warning.
Look, you're gonna be hard pressed to find a bigger Shyamalan fan than me. THE SIXTH SENSE was my #1 on my Top Ten List the year it came out. It knocked me on my ass, but made sure to scare the hell out of me first. UNBREAKABLE's take on what being a superhero would be in real life is a work of wonder. Inspired, cast perfectly, paced just right and it still had a great ending. SIGNS caught a lot of flack, which I still don't understand. The human drama at the heart of the alien invasion is genuine and affecting. You get to know the family before they're put in danger, which was absolutely terrifying to me. Claustrophobic, intense and scary with an ending that really didn't depend on any sort of twist.
I'm a huge M. Night fan. I don't think there's anybody working today that understands how to translate tension to screen like he does. At the heart of every one of his movies is a group of characters or a relationship that is not only real, but interesting in and of itself. I think one of his great accomplishments is the fact that I saw THE SIXTH SENSE seven times in the theater. Partially it was because I kept taking friends and family to watch their reaction, but part of it also was Haley Joel Osment's relationship with Bruce Willis as well as his relationship with his mother or Willis' relationship to his wife. The point is, Shyamalan makes twist films, but in all of his films if you take the twist away, you're still left with interesting people and interesting relationships.
I said I'm a huge M. Night fan, but I can not be an M. Night apologist. I was pulling for THE VILLAGE to work, I really was. But it doesn't. Sure, there are a few moments of great tension (the first arrival of Those Who Are Not Talked About and the run-in with one of them in the woods, specifically) and there is one really strong relationship (the quiet love between Joaquin Phoenix and Bryce Dallas Howard, resulting in one great scene with them together on a porch). But, most tension is broken by taking away the threat so early on or giving away a plot point right in the middle of the scene and most of the Villagers aren't given much room to grow out of clichéd 1800s folken.
Usually Night is able to pull really strong performances from his actors. I cite the dinner scene near the end of SIGNS or the great subtlety from Bruce Willis in both THE SIXTH SENSE and UNBREAKABLE. However, in this movie Sigourney Weaver is really weak. Her line delivery is forced, almost said with a smile and has dramatic pauses in all the wrong places. The same can be said about most of the misplaced supporting cast with the exception of Adrien Brody, whose character is a simpleton and he has great fun with the exaggerated tones of the character.
At a point in the film you find there may be a reason for this, but I will not go further than that so I won't spoil any of the big reveals... Not that you'd have to worry about that because Shyamalan does a good job of picking the worst time to lay the big secret out. My buddy Kraken described it as if Bruce Willis finds out he's dead 45 minutes before the end of the movie and then just goes around questioning the conclusion for the rest of the movie before it peters out and you just wish he'd hurry up and accept it so you can leave the theater.
William Hurt is just bland in the film. He has some good scenes, he has some not so good scenes, but they all even out to make him a very uninteresting character. Brendan Gleeson is wasted... he has all of 8 lines in the movie and no real importance to the story. Judy Greer gives a very annoying performance as the sister of Bryce Dallas Howard that crushes on Joaquin Phoenix... Joaquin is good in the roll and gives a very well delivered performance during the before-mentioned porch scene with Howard.
I don't know what else to say other than the twist is poorly, poorly executed and the characters don't make up for it. The idea is a strong one, but it feels sloppy. Every time Shyamalan tries to create tension, he breaks it with a bad edit or an even worse choice explaining the fear away before it reaches its end. In all Shyamalan films I've seen up to this point (starting with THE SIXTH SENSE) I got caught up with the characters and wasn't looking for the ending, so each time it hit it hit me hard. Even in SIGNS I got goosebumps with "Swing away, Merrill." There is no such moment in this.
I'm disappointed in the film, I'm sad that I will not put this film next to SIXTH SENSE, UNBREAKABLE and SIGNS on my DVD shelf. I'm sad most of all because the idea is a good one. Had he spent a little more time not giving the next gag away one reel before it needed to be and concentrating on some of the loose character threads (like the maybe/maybe not love between Weaver and Hurt) then it would have been better. The film is advertised as a horror movie and it really isn't. There are 2 or 3 tense moments, but nothing that even comes close to something as simple as the kid wanting to show Osment his father's gun from THE SIXTH SENSE or Mel Gibson looking under the cabinet door with the knife in SIGNS.
I will still proudly call myself a fan of M. Night's work. I still believe his previous three films are superb examples of their genres by one of the most gifted writer/directors working today. Just like I believe George Lucas has a brilliant imagination and his work on the original STAR WARS films will always be cherished (too bad he's bound and determined to deny me the originals as I remember them), but I will not excuse away the mistakes he's made in the prequels just because I love a lot of what he's done. I can point out what he did right, all the Palpatine power manipulations, for one, just as I can point out the wrong, 3PO's god awful lines in ATTACK OF THE CLONES, for instance... "What a drag!" Jesus...
I hope M. Night isn't on the path Lucas is. I hope this is one misstep in an otherwise brilliant career. Even though THE VILLAGE doesn't work, you can still see his raw talent peaking through at times. He still has some great films left in him... Hopefully he'll listen to whatever criticism he gets on this film... Judging by the nearly full house's reaction at the end of the movie tonight, I'd bet he's gonna have a lot of it. The worst thing he can do is isolate himself and not have a Jiminy Cricket around him to help him remember between right and wrong. Lucas has done that and it's a big reason why so many fans were burned by the prequels. At least in this one, lowly seaman's opinion.
All in all... it's a very disappointing movie to a hardcore M. Night fan like me. There are characters that work, there are characters that don't. There are relationships that half-work and then some that just plain don't exist and the execution of all the big reveals I found to be sloppy and mishandled. The worse thing I can say about the movie is when all the pluses and all the minuses are tallied up this one lands just about at the mediocre mark.
Well, I better get off. Be back soon with some more Comic-Con interviews and other goodies that're in the works. 'Til then this is Quint bidding you all a fond farewell and adieu!
-Quint
