Review of The Village (2004) by Harry W — 03 May 2014

The Village wasn't a film I expected to be impressed by, because M. Night Shymalan's films The Happening and After Earth are both just terrible. But under recommendation from a friend, I figured I should give The Village a chance.

And The Village taught me that I was a person with good expectations when it came to predicting cinema.

The titular village that the main characters live in is supposedly set in 1897, but everything looks significantly more like a modern Amish community than a 1897 setting. It just doesn't feel right because the world looks too modern, so when the twist ending comes it is really no surprise. The language doesn't feel that dated either, it feels like slightly fractured contemporary English so the screenplay in The Village lends no intelligence to the story.

But that proves to be the dumbest feature of The Village, the twist ending. I mean I'm used to it since it's what M. Night Shymalan is well known for, but even he should have recognised the ridiculous stupidity behind this one. The logic of how a community can hide off from the rest of the world and have its people not actually be aware of its surroundings makes even less sense than why aliens would get killed by water as they did in M. Night Shymalan's previous effort Signs. I mean, somebody is bound to walk too far from the village and out of the woods one day and lose all their faith in society or something like that. It is just so f*cking stupid. The ending isn't antclimactic, it's a compliment to M. Night Shymalan's building career as one of the worst film directors of the contemporary age, worse than Michael Bay. The ending of The Village is even dumber than one of those movies where the main character wakes up and realises that everything is a dream, because in this one everything actually happened but the whole time the characters were in some stupid fake part of the world. The Village is a fine example of lazy writing in terms of story, script and characters, and so it's a serious failure in so many ways, but most of all in entertainment.

The Village is too slow and wastes too much time over the course of 108 minutes attempting to build tension which proves hit and miss, as does the cast.

Bryce Dallas Howard is a great lead, but she is let down by weak writing and the decision for her character to be blind because its all ridiculous. But her line delivery is gentle enough and her innocence is friendly, so she proves what her skills as an actress are.

Joaquin Phoenix does a strong job as well because he has a certain youthful passion to him at the age of 29 which is key to the success of his character. His emotional state is constantly beneficial to the tone of the film and story development, and his efforts are good.

Adrien Brody is inconsistent in the effectiveness of his performance in The Village, because the quality of his effort is largely dependent on what he is made to do. When he gets up and laughs like the man with a developmental disability he does a fine job, but when he is randomly running through the field he has a blank expression which boasts nothing about him.

Signourney Weaver, however, is as good as ever in a simple supporting role.

But the cinematography in The Village is undeniably beautiful. It moves so smoothly and manages to capture some angles which assist the atmosphere in reaching for its intensity, even if it doesn't always reach it. And the scenery surrounding it is beautiful since even though he fails, M. Night Shymalan really goes for a legitimate attempt at the visual quality of The Village through how the nature setting appears.

The musical score is the strongest element of The Village and it is also the Academy Award nominated asset. It is beautifully composed and very atmospheric in terms of how it captures the intense and eerie tone of The Village.

But still, The Village is another film to add to M. Night Shymalan's list of poor quality films and terrible twist endings.