Every village has an idiot, or so the saying goes.
And apparently in this village that idiot is M. Night Shyamalan, who went from making the great Sixth Sense to the so-so Unbreakable to this piece of cow manure.
The plot is predictable, the story boring. The acting...well, the acting is good, but the movie has characters that this reviewer has no interest in or warmth toward. So it begs the question: Are the actors good at playing characters that are boring or can you tell?
If nothing else this movie answers one question: If a movie about a forest bombs does it make a sound?
The answer is yes.
And that sound is someone asking, "Tell me again why I rented this?"
Ed/Pub:LM
Article comments
1 - Phillip Winn
So the film didn't raise any questions in your mind whatsoever? Not even for a moment did you question what it would take to drive you to such extreme measures? You didn't wonder how you would deal with overwhelming grief? You didn't think -- just once -- about what sort of effort it would take to shelter children from life's cruelty, and whether or not it was even possible?
Wow.
2 - The Fifth Dentist
This review made me laugh -- and it's true -- this movie sucks. M. Night Shyamalan movies keep getting worse:
The Sixth Sense = 2 thumbs up
Unbreakable = 1 thumb up
Signs = 1 thumb up your ass
The Village = WTF?
To continue this trend Shyamalan will need to physically smear his own fecal matter on the celluloid.
3 - RJ
Hmm...
The Sixth Sense was great.
Unbreakable was thought-provoking, but just plain weird, and the ending was weak.
Signs was pretty darn good, although it was also pretty weird.
And I haven't seen The Village, though most people seem to agree that it was quite bad...
4 - El Bicho
This review anwsers the question can a review be so short that it doesn't add anything new to a discussion of a film that's over a year old.
The answer is yes.
All Night's movies deal with people coming to terms with who they are and finding their place in the world. Unbreakable and Signs are both very good movies. I was surprised the Christian right didn't embrace Signs more.
5 - Tan The Man
It wasn't that bad... and the music was really good. Joaquin Phoenix and William Hurt were really good in it.
6 - Azi
I have to disagree with you. You watched it, hoping for a scary movie. After all, that's how it was advertised, and you knew Shyamalan's directing style. It wasn't scary, and therefore you were disappointed. Thats the whole kit and kaboodle.
>Azi
7 - Scott Butki
Azi nailed my feelings on it.
8 - Triniman
This film was better than I expected. The ending surprised me, although I read a spoiler and knew the secret behind the ones they do not speak of. It's a quality film, IMHO.
I went to see Signs on opening night with a born again Christian friend and much to my surprise, he hated it. I thought it was about reclaiming one's faith.
9 - Scott Butki
I don't need a two hour movie of such stinking quality to think about what it would take for me to think about questions like what it would take for me to need special measures.
10 - Scott Butki
Roger Eberts may have said it best in his review of "The Village"
To call it an anticlimax would be an insult not only to climaxes but to prefixes. It's a crummy secret, about one step up the ladder of narrative originality from It Was All a Dream. It's so witless, in fact, that when we do discover the secret, we want to rewind the film so we don't know the secret anymore
11 - Tan The Man
Scary? Who goes to a movie to be scared? There really isn't such a thing as scary anymore in today's world. Movies that claim to be scary are insulting your intelligence. Sixth Sense was thrilling. To think The Village was going to be scary is the misinterpretation of his films.
12 - Rob
I liked the movie. It's not his best, but I still enjoyed it. Well worth the rental fee.
13 - Scott Butki
Thanks for the feedback.
I attribute the mixed reaction partially to expectations. I had expected something better.