Nachtkriechen,
After you see the film, read my spoiler section and see if you agree with me. Boy, you are in a for a great surprise, and I hope you like it! I love all of M. Night's movies as well.

TWill,
I totally understand why you hated the ending, and I'm sure some other people will, too. I think that the trailers were kind of misleading and may have brought the wrong type of audeince to the film, because it is not really a horror/sci-fi movie. I actually kind of thought that if you watched close enough that the ending wasn't really that big of a surprise.
SPOLIER ALERT:


I guessed just by seeing the previews that the creatures were either nonexistent or fake, and I was right. I also guessed that the one in the suit chasing Ivy was Noah. Everyone had all these traumatized lives and I knew that was no coincidence. Coincidences don't really exist in Shyamalan's movies (especially Signs, nothing was a chance occurence). The ending shouldn't have been a big shocker. Perhaps the ending didn't surprise you and you just thought it sucked, which is fine. People are so used to Shyamalan doing alien/ghost supernatual movies that when he makes a movie without them and teasing in the previews like there would be, then it won't be everyone's cup of tea. I salute Shyamalan for making a film with a different tone, story and theme while still retaining his awesome style.

I ended up seeing this last night. To answer your quote Critic, I am a movie buff and I thought it sucked, and I dont exactly understand your comment why common folks would not appreciating the ending and movie buffs would. I dont know if you meant anything by it, but it was a little insulting. The ending was just as bad as I thought it was going to be...





SPOILERS AHEAD











Personally, I am insulted by the ending. I love it how the towns people spoke in Older English. They must have brought over their copies of the Crucible.

TGP,

Thanks for your extra effort with the "spoilers ahead" part of your post! As I mentioned I won't be able to see the film until Monday. I'm glad I read your post (the non spoiler part of it that is). From your description, it sounds like I will enjoy "The Village" as much as I hoped I would. I'm a movie buff, and a big fan of Shyamalan's films so far, so it sounds like this will be a fresh step in a new direction for his style. I'll go with a completely open mind. However now I'm so enthused to see it, I can't wait until Monday!! :o

- Josh :D

Well guys, I saw The Village... and guess what... M. Night's streak of great films remains unbroken. Yep, that's right, The Village is a great film. One word of advice to those who haven't seen it: Throw out all of your preconceptions of what this film looks like in the trailers, they are misleading. See the film with an open mind. I can't believe that I was previoulsy complaining that M. Night was not branching out, that all of his films were supernatural thrillers with twist endings. This film is VERY DIFFERENT from M. Night's previous work. It still has his style, but the plot and themes are very different. The ending has been very much maligned on the net. Actually, if you are watching the film closely and you understand what's going on then the ending shouldn't come as a surprise. The film still has plenty of creepiness and scares. (In fact, there are a few scenes that made me jump and at least one in which the whole audience literally gasped in shock). That's what I love about Shyamalan, he makes scary movies with atmosphere, not gore and CGI. I don't think there was any CGI in this film at all. Anyway, I highly reccomend this, I'd give it a 7 or 8 out of 10. Great performances, direction, atmosphere, plot, ending... everything. How does it stack up to other M. Night films? Signs is still my fave, and the Village would probably rank as a tie with Unbreakabl and above Sixth Sense. I love all of M. Night's films, but for some reason the Sixth Sense is my least favorite. Go figure. On my final note, as i said, THROW OUT ALL PRECONCEPTIONS AND SEE THIS FILM WITH NO EXPECTATIONS REGARDING THE PLOT. I guarantee that this film won't be what you expect. What are you waiting for? GO SEE IT!


SPOILERS AHEAD: DO NOT READ UNLESS YOU HAVE SEEN THE FILM:













Okay, I'm sure that everyone saw this film expecting a great creature horror movie thriller based on the previews. I'm sure that lots of you were pissed after finding out that it was a social commentary devoid of monsters. I'm also sure that the film will not be well critically received, and some people will hate it based on their preconceptions of what they thought the movie should or would be. But that's what I love about M. Night: he never gives you what you were expecting. He wants to be original and surprising. Everyone else makes creature horror films, and Night wants to offer thought-provoking alternatives. I remember seeing previews for Signs and thinking it would be an Independence Day style blockbuster. Instead, it was an amazing story about a man's power struggle with his faith and God that used an alien subplot as a tool to tell the REAL story. You should know by now that previews for Night's films never truly show what the film is about.
My thoughts on the film:
This Village is a very sheltered, traditional society. The illusion of monsters is given so that people will not venture into the "civilized world" and discover that their realities are all fabricated. The film starts slowly, patiently, because it is important to see how these peopel live in order to understand the ending. All the people who started the society had sad, broken pasts and they decided to box themselves up to run away from life's potential problems. Hurt's character was trying to make his idea of a Utopian society devoid of greed and crime. He didn't realize that people weren't meant to be sheltered in this way, it's not natural. Notice in the photo he's holding in the end that they are all standing in front of a Counseling Center. These people were on an experiment to see if this old way of life without any other option would cure their problems. One theory I have is that Hurt's character killed his own grandfather/brother because he was a billionaire and he could use that money to make the "animal shelter" where they would live. How else did he have all the money to establish such a huge piece of land and to hire workers to make sure no one found out? If that's true, than he commited a heinous crime in order to make a society without crime, ironically, simialr to Lamar Burgess in Minority Report. I think that was the reason for the black box of newspaper clippings and photos, they wanted to forget the terrible act they did to make this Utopia. They knew that making these stories of monsters and of red as "the bad color" and spreading them at an early age that no one would try to leave with the red berries and suited monsters everywhere. They also know that this "Utopia" couldn't last forever. In all of their prayers, they said, "we pray for all the time we have left." Every adult generation would have to be made aware of the outside world to spread the monster stories, and eventually someone would say, "to hell with this" and they'd spread the truth and leave. The film is also a great commentary on dealing with fear and being boxed in. Adrian Brody's character Noah was locked in the quiet room for stabbing Lucius. Him being boxed in like that basically made him stir crazy and I think he tried to kill Ivy and Lucius because he was in love with Ivy and Lucius was taking her away from him. Even in this society, crime was still present. I believe that Noah was also the one who skinned all the animals, and that' why he was laughing when he first heard them because he knew it was fake and it was like a silly game to him. He went to the woods because he knew it was all fake, and he may have possibly been outside the shelter before. A perfect society is impossible, human nature prevents it. This knifing scene was one of the most shocking I have ever seen, it was the moment I was referring to above that made the audience gasp. The second stab just made me speechless, it was so real and brutal. I couldn't tell if he was really mentally ill or if that was a trick on his part. He could have been ill from inbreeding, since there are only about 50 people in the village that keep reproducing within families since there are no new people. Anyway, there are lots of possible morals that could be extracted from the film. As with all M. Night's films, they are meant to make you think and spark conversation. The ending shouldn't have come as such a shock if you were following all the clues. I think it's a great film that more people would enjoy if they didn't have all of their preconceived notions of what the film should be. Enjoy it on its own terms. I look forward to more future M. Night projects, and I have no doubt that he will become one of the best filmmakers of today.

Eddie,

Maybe we could strap Tim down to a chair, duct tape his eyelids open, and make him watch "Starship Troopers" until he did like it?

Come on Tim!! "na na na na na na na na TROOPERS!!"


- Josh

"Mmmmmm, One of uuuuuusss . . . " -- Homer Simpson.

Tim,

"ONE OF US... ONE OF US" ;)

- Josh

It's me, I hate that stupid movie! :@ lol :D

Eddie,

You can bring the movie over and force me to watch it as long as I can bring "Unbreakable" to your pad and force you to watch it until you like it. :D

Tim.

Someone doesn't like Starship Troopers??? Where is he? WHERE IS HE?

Tim,

Yeah, but what John and I really need to do is "visit" your house until you like "Starship Troopers". :)

Eddie