The Village

Okie... this was like a review I wrote for a site, in the hopes they would pop it on the net for all to see. But to no avail the site never got up and I believe the person that was going to create it, is not anymore :/
Anyway on with the writing thing...

First off, I must say I do not like films made ‘now-a-days’ rather than films made in the forties and fifties - I grew up with these films. So it is not too often that a film is released now which I actually like. I can find almost every film enjoyable to watch, but I will not ‘like’ them. But M. Night’s works are something not that I look forward to. But something that I expect to be better than most films. To tell the truth, it took me at least 2 years to actually watch the Sixth Sense, I got Unbreakable when it was released on DVD, why I am not sure.

But I always liked it. I purchased Signs rather randomly... so as you can see I don’t wait in anticipation for his films to be released, but “The Village” was different. Now I can say before I saw the film I watched a preview of it on Film 2004 (?) and that I had actually guessed what the ‘twist’ to the story was. But I am not attracted to films so that I may be surprised by a twist. “The Village” was billed as being a horror film. Something else that I tend not to take notice of. But I watched a trailer and was intrigued. I liked the idea of a film based around a community a people, this is reinforced, because the cast is not a bunch of overly beautified people, everyone looks ‘normal’, the main character Ivy is a tomboy, thereby she is not shown as over-the-top glamorous, which I believe makes the characters a hell of a lot more believable.

People have compared Shyamalan to Hitchcock and it is in a way, more so than his other films. He relies heavily on sound and that which you don't see, also from a twist in the story that is unexpected; when you are led to believe you know who the story is about, but then it drastically changes to another character.

The actors I did not know too well. Bryce Dallas Howard was good as a blind girl. Adrian Brody was interesting as a mentally retarded person, but I found him too annoying. Joaquin Phoenix was a little confusing as a person who simply does not speak, but then I could relate to that. I liked how she would not speak of her colour; usually a film would go on and explain it, like the antagonist explaining to their archenemy how they are going to execute their plan. The naivety of the characters was something I also liked, most characters in films are very brash and extremely optimistic, I do not like that, it tends to make characters ever more unbelievable. Another very important point, which I despise many films for not doing is that it does not rely on action or sex to tell the story.

Now I don't really know what I think of the twist. The reason that I liked about the film was how I felt attached to it, more so than most films, so much that during an important part of the film I actually held hate against a character because he ruined what was a nice uneventful movie. As for the actors/actresses I can say that I felt that a few of the characters were a little confusing, simply because there was not much depth to other characters... so everyone but the main characters are a little one dimensional.

‘Those which we do not speak of’, look pretty cool to me, reminded me kinda of really big rats, and that they would look menacing to me, but then I would suppose Ivy could not see them, and the mind does exaggerate ideas, then perhaps making them a lot more intimidating.

I like the scenes with Lucius and Ivy. Melts my heart... helps to build the tension of if he will come to her rescue. Of course he would, because it’s a film. It was probably the fact that he touched her (which does have significance), and that it looks like she is doubting he will come. It is a test of his love.

There were some lines I liked especially “Sometimes we don't do things we want to do so that others won't know we want to do them” I found it funny how Lucius found it such a mouthful, but everything the statement says is true. As well as that I loved the conversation before the footrace, about ‘cheating’ reminds me of something I would say.

Alright, so those were the parts that I liked, now for what I did not like, although there is not much in the way of negative comments I must say that slow motion was used a couple of times, I really did not like this, as it didn’t feel right. Another bad point I did notice was the editing, I do not think that this was very good, but with me as long as you have a nice story; which this film has, I do not really care about the editing.
Well that was my opinion of what I believe is a good film, I hope that perhaps you will agree with me.

Cptalbertwesker rating - 8/10