The Village

There's been controversy about The Village for quite some time. The script was leaked onto the internet back in May, and a rather sizeable group of people were pissed about the ending. I thought, "Hm. Maybe there isn't a twist ending this time. That could be why people are pissed."
I chose not to read anything more about the story, nor did I know anything about this movie except what was on the previews. I was looking forward to this great looking flick.
I walked into the theater thinking, "Maybe there's no twist. Maybe there is. I don't really care. I'm just gonna watch it and like it for what it is. I won't look for a twist at all. Just sit there, and WATCH it."
I wasn't even 15 minutes into the movie when I started thinking, "Holy shit the dialogue is so stupid. They're trying so hard to sound like they're from an older time when all they're doing is saying 'Shall I decide to watch for What Is In The Woods? I do not know. I feel Those That Shall Not Be Named will let me pass through the forest because my heart is pure. Therefore, I will not fear the evils that may dwell within from Those That Cannot Be Named."
- As if saying "cannot, will not, should not, is not, etc.." instead of "won't, can't, shouldn't etc..." would make them seem like they're from the past!
That alone was enough to get me laughing for the wrong reasons.
Add to that the fact that they always talked just above a whisper and talked SOOOO SLOOOOOOOOWLY. Holy shit why don't they SPEAK UP and TALK LIKE A NORMAL PERSON FOR CRYIN' OUT LOUD!
After about the first 20 minutes I thought to myself "wouldn't it be funny IF..." and made a quick conclusion of how the movie could end. Unfortunately, my assumption was implausible for reasons that I justified right after thinking it - and unfortunately, I was RIGHT about my assumption, and the 'twist' was JUST AS IMPLAUSIBLE AS I HAD SUSPECTED!"
James Newton Howard has been Shyamalan's musical collaborator since The Sixth Sense. In all three of the past Shyamalan films (6th Sense, Unbreakable, Signs), Howard managed to make a soundtrack that was tight, subtle and riveting. With Signs he pounded out a wonderfully Hitchcockian theme reminiscent of Bernard Herrmann's classic Psycho theme that fit so well with the feel of the movie that I couldn't think of any other composer who could pull it off more nicely.
This is not the case with The Village. In fact, I will go so far as to say that it is downright annoying. When Lucius decides to take a 20 yard saunter past the village barrier into the woods, the music crescendoes so loudly that I almost plugged my ears, and I thought "Jesus, that was so ridiculous. Not scary at all."
Come to think of it, that's about how my mental processes reacted to just about every scene. That could be my Village Mantra. Or, in the words of the Village People, I could call this mantra "The Moan And Groan Of He Who Watches This Film."
I had no investment in any of the characters, nor was there much of a story that was capable of holding my interest. I thought Pheonix was funny as Lucious at the start, but eventually I didn't care what he had to say.
The preacher's daughter, a blind girl named Ivy Walker (Bryce Dallas Howard - Ron Howard's daughter) was the only character that had any substance to it, and Howard did a great job.
By the time I was an hour into The Village, some of the answers to this mystery started to unfold; but in very much the wrong order and at the wrong times.
There was a moment in a shed that the Village People called "The Shed That Shall Not Be Used" - I kid you not! - which revealed a clue just before a key moment in the forest. Because this clue was revealed too soon, it took away the suspense of the forest scene, and at the same time made a red herring to the possibility that things STILL aren't what they seem (the pit. That's all I'll say) which bluffed the audience about as affectively as a young boy with his hand in the cookie jar.
This is when I was ready to leave the theater. I won't go into too much more about the details of why I left because I dont' want to spoil the movie for people who haven't seen it.
Once THE PIT scene concluded, and something happened at THE SILENT ROOM, I decided that the unbelievable lengths Shymalamadingong went to to try and justify the moment at THE PIT was so contrived and illogical that I decided to walk out of the movie.
I laughed out loud for the last time as I flipped off both my fingers at the screen.
I'm glad I left. After knowing how it ended, and realizing that my wild and quickly forgotten GUESS was correct, I just got even more pissed off about how pathetic this contrived and BORING piece of shit movie really was.
I thought to myself at one point, "How much different would this movie be WITHOUT the creatures? Not much different."
If they placed this movie in a village that is too far away to walk safely to another town, not much of the decisions the characters made throughout the course of the film would have been much different.
Except for the petty excuses at hinting to what the conclusion is.
This movie stunk, and it in no way had the solid and PLAUSIBLE clues and conclusion that the other two-and-seven-eigths Shyamalan flicks had going for them. I love his first three movies, and I applaud his ingenuity.
I say 2 and 7/8ths because of the last ten minutes of Signs, which drastically brought down my opinion of that one quite a bit ("Swing away, Merill, swing away." How about "Suck my dick stupid wannabe twist ending?!" Yeah, that's what I'm sayin!). The Signs ending made no sense, if ONLY for the fact that there should NOT be a video of an alien in BRAZIL if ... uh... don't wanna spoil it. But THINK about what Brazil has TONS of all through the year. Why would an alien walk naked down the street in fuckin' BRAZIL of all places?
But with Signs, minus the totally flaccid ending, I was sucked into the love the family had for each other and was genuinely concerned. I still get the heebie jeebies coaxed outta me on at least three scenes HARDCORE ("Oh yeah... and don't open the pantry door, either." Oooooh, shiiit! Good times!).
I barely got a woody during the scene in The Village when the guy was standing on the stump.
And the slow motion scene when the blind girl has her hand outstretched in the doorway, I was like "WTF?! You fuckin' moron! That's not scary, that's just STUPID OF YOU!"
I don't care that this wasn't a horror flick. I barely even mind that it's almost a flat-out DRAMA. What I'm mad about is how Shyamalan refuses to justify LOGICALLY the reasons for making a boring movie that barely has an excuse for a bad and predictable ending. Plus, if he wasn't aiming on scaring us as much, at least he could make a movie that had strong character development and believable dialogue.
I hated this movie.

Grade: F+

THE SPOILERS SECTION - DO NOT READ BEYOND HERE IF YOU HAVEN'T SEEN THE MOVIE!!!!

I walked out of The Village early. When Adrian Brody fell into the pit I had enough. I laughed for the last time, and walked out flipping both my middle fingers at the screen.
A friend of mine told me how it ended, and I was proud of the fact that I didn't sit through the misery any longer.
There are so many illogical and downright LOL inconsistancies with The Village that I could spend a very very long time trying to describe so much that pisses me off about it. Instead, I'm gonna write a list. I'll call it

Things That You Shouldn't Do When Making a Movie Called The Village

1 - Don't try to make these people talk like they're in 1890, and fail miserably... especially when they DON'T live in the 1890's!

Did you think that a town that is technologically inept is an original concept? Did you see Witness, or perhaps Kingpin? It has a community of religious folk who do that sort of thing all the time! I think they're called the Amish.

2 - If an elder is killing animals and livestock to scare the townsfolk, then why do the elders discuss the mystery of Those That Cannot Be Named in a closed-off private meeting as if they don't know that THEY are the creatures? Oh yeah... it's to try to mislead the audience into thinking this isn't the case. Let's just forget about logic for a long time. Like, forget about logic forever. Even something called "suspension of disbelief" has been thrown out the window just to cheat the audience. Way to go, Dickhead.

3 - An elder is killing their only source of food that is essential to everyone's survival; yet, none of the elders are willing to go to town even when this happens. Real smart, dipshits.

4 - Don't give away the fact that creatures aren't real before we see one stalking a blind girl in the forest. We already know it's some idiot (haha another pun) in a suit. Do we really think he's gonna hurt her?

5 - Saying that he 'read a history book that said something about creatures being in these woods' is yet another useless line that doesn't need to be told to blind bitch because he KNOWS that isn't the case. It was only used to be overdubbed during the aforementioned Creature Attack In The Forest scene to try and fool the audience into thinking that this creature might actually be real. The problem is, we already KNOW that retard found a suit. Plus, it's another one of those instances where all you did (yeah you, The Writer of this movie) was blatantly lie to us viewers once again.

6 - Riddle me this, Batman: Is this village such a closed-off location that planes have never ever flown overhead?

7 - Riddle me further: If it's a two day journey to town for a blind girl, then how long would it take an off-roader to reach this village - TWO HOURS?!
8 - If your children are being wiped out by an easily curable disease, why the fuck do you debate about whether or not you should go into town to save the children?

9 - 'Those That Shall Not Be Named'? 'The Shed That Shall Not Be Used'? Did you think using these names was really a good idea?

10 - Hey Mr. Shyamalan, do you really think that the color red needs to be even MORE prominent in this movie than in all your other movies combined (except for perhaps the completely red sheets at the end of The Sixth Sense)?

11 - If The Village Idiot commits a murder, why do you place him in a room that has easy-to-break windows?

12 - Furthermore, why the fuck do you leave a freakin' costume of the creatures under the floorboards of a building that you don't stand gaurd in 24/7?
Add an even more illogical scenario: How does the Village Idiot know to break the floorboards to the exact spot the creature costume was hidden?
How did he run off unnoticed into the woods with a costume?
13 - He knows how to put it on and wear it perfectly?
14 - He knows exactly where to go in the forest to find a BLIND GIRL, and yet is still fooled into falling into a pit that only a blind man can't see (haha)?!

I will shut up now.
This movie sucks.