The Village is the latest smashing block buster hit from M. Night Shyamalan - commonly known for the production of films such as “The Sixth Sense” and “Signs”. Touchstone Pictures took care of all of the nitty gritty stuff such as the promotion and sending it to the theatres.
Although okay in some aspects, I felt the movie could have been tremendously improved in others. In this review, I intend to “go to town” on the movie (ala rant), or should I perhaps be saying “go to the village” on this movie?
The Village is said to be a thriller, drama, horror and romance film. I’m beginning to think they seem to have left humour (haha) out of the list of the genres. I don’t see why they did as many people thought it was of the humour genre and laughed throughout the movie. Yes, I am talking about the lousy cinema audience we had tonight. Laughing, constant talking and other crap such as the ringing of mobile phones constantly during the film as well as the unnecessary “TURN IT OFF!” comments. This was indeed an immature bunch of arrogant children which were in the audience. People! When you see a movie, shut the f… up because even though you may not be paying attention, others probably are!
Right, now back to the actual film.
The Village represents a quiet and alienated village separated from the modern and idealised rural world by a forest. The people of the village do not enter the woods, and the creatures do not enter the village. Lucius (played by Joaquin Phoenix) stupidly enters the woods and challenges this pact. Dead animal carcasses appearing around the village and the creatures hunting down the people cause the elders to fear for the safety of the village, their morals and culture and sets out to forever change the future of the village.
The film has a runtime of 108 minutes. I think if I was the director of this film, I could have cut it down to five minutes, half an hour at the most. The story line does not contain enough “action” to sustain interest in the film. The pre-ramble rubbish in my opinion was not necessary. If I were the director of The Village I would have set it out as follows.
- Shots of a little community on the edge of a forest, guarded by watch towers.
- Shadows of creatures moving in the woods, shots of the village people scared by the forest.
- The creatures killing live produce and leaving it as signs they want the village people gone.
- Someone gets stabbed, whilst someone goes to town (no pun intended) for medicinal purposes.
- As she goes through the forest she kills a creature.
- She returns back with the medicine to save her Lucius.
- A nice little “The End” screen.
There we have it, the five minute version of The Village and the story line and plot still work fine! Nothing’s changed, just the rubbish and so called “story line build up” from the film has been removed, and I guarantee that interest in the film will be sustained. Wow, I should get in to the film industry.
The Village has a few main themes that I picked up on that were clearly presented in the film:
- A community built around lies.
- Innocence versus corruption.
- People are stupid.
Okay, well people generally aren’t stupid and that was not one of the major things presented in this film - I just thought I would mention it.
The elders of the village know a lot more than they let out in to the past of history of the village, as well as these mythical creatures - there are numerous unexpected twists in the story line and the plot - which do however give deeper insight and thought into the film than first presented.
What’s the deal with Ivy being blind? To me it looked like she was able to find her way through the woods fine, able to navigate her way to find the path which led her to the city. She was also able to find her way through the village, to people’s houses. I mean lets be a bit realistic here. What are the chances of a blind person who loses their walking stick in the woods to be able to find her way through near perfectly and not even trip over! Yes, she may have a sense of position but being somewhere that she has never been before and in a place she has never experienced, how it is possible for her to easily make her way to the other end of the woods. (Oh wait, I forgot - anything is possible in a movie!)
The end of the film as a huge anti climax in my opinion however. Though there were some parts of the movie which were good, and some parts which I felt were not needed for the story line to progress (such as the young boy’s funeral at the beginning which was not mentioned or developed in the film past that point). I give the film about a 3/5.
Okay, now we’re going to talk about the trailer of the film. The trailer presented the film as some huge horror and thriller film, whereas I said earlier it’s apparently a comedy too, as well as the other genres it fits in to. The trailer could have simply said: “In a village full of lies. There is something in the woods. Something big and scary, that is those who we do not speak of. Those who enter the forest are not to return. Watch out, they paint on your doors!”.
Stay out of the woods, some creature may come after you!
Comments
Matt (September 4th, 2004, 9:32 pm)
Chris, your review was like the film itself - Long and drawn out…
Two words: “I disliked the movie”
David Kornahrens (September 4th, 2004, 9:54 pm)
I didn’t see the movie, and I’m sure I wouldn’t enjoy the film. I have heard bad things about it. But, I’m a movie critic, maybe a movie buff. But, in any case, I’m interested in the film. I will attempt to view myself.
Joel (September 5th, 2004, 12:01 am)
The only reason that people are thinking this movie is crap is because they expect a full on horror, which is what is stupidly presented. Maybe some parts of the start were a tad slow but most was needed for the development of the plot.
The character of lucious (spelling), in my opinion, was pretty tamely presented. And the point you made about the blind chick, I think it’s pretty reasonable that she can find her way around a small town that she has been confined to for how ever many years shes been around
Although finding her way back to the hole when being chased by the monster is pretty unrealistic.
I think you should have marked this as a spoiler but since you didnt enjoy it, why care if you ruin other’s views of it?
Chris Boulton (September 5th, 2004, 12:08 am)
Who said I didnt enjoy the movie? I just critiqued it on what could be improved.
I was going to lengthen the review today with the good bits and such but (thanks to Matt up above and on MSN who said it was too long) I probably won’t be doing that.
I didn’t really wreck any of the major points in the plot though? :-/
Lobster (September 5th, 2004, 10:20 am)
I feel that the whole point of the film was the expectation of it to be a horror movie. Maybe it was because I saw it on screen 1 of our multiplex and I wasn’t told much about it before I went in, but I think the true value of this film was the psychological one that played on your expectation for it to be horrific. That does make it a very difficult film to market - you market is good points because then that’ll spoil it. Personally I found it quite chilling, and though it’s not the best film ever, better than this review puts it. I think Chris has overlooked the values that I found in the film, but everyone has different expectations of films so I understand that.
KnightieBoy (September 9th, 2004, 5:11 am)
Well, I always like every single movie (except when it has a crappy ending) I’ve still got to see this one, but I think I’ll enjoy the movie for what it is, and no more tbh.. Just that