M. Night Shyamalan's The Village

[Myxo]

Ghostboy..

I felt the same way about Signs as well.

I hate that fucking movie but I gotta admit there were some moments of brilliance where I felt like Shyamalan was on top of his game. The next few days that film stuck with me as well. I simply don't understand what he does wrong. We all agree Signs was a stinker, but damnit, it didn't have to be. Both that movie and The Village feel like a stretch of an idea that started with the Sixth Sense. People flock to his movies to be surprised at the end. The problem is, somewhere along the way Shyamalan has gotten lazy on us all. Don't show us the fucking monsters. Make us afraid of them! Fingers under a door is enough..

I mean Christ, the opening sequence of the Sixth Sense always gives me goosebumps. Fucking brilliant. I think like the Wachowski brothers did with 2 & 3 of their trilogy, Shyamalan has taken his success and started taking less risks. Like I said in that quote above, he needs to start respecting his audience. The guy has plenty of success. The fact that his shitty movies open at 50 million proves that. Why does he continue to churn out turds? Make something that challenges your audience. Who cares if the people who flock to Will Smith summer blockbusters hate it. His name alone will prompt people to go anyway.

I wanna make one more point before I finish. There is a magic trick my grandfather taught me when I was little. The trick works like this..

***

You approach somebody with a deck of cards in your hand. As you get closer to the person you will show the trick to, you carefully peel back two cards off the top and hold them precisely together. You flip up both cards and ask the person,

"What card is this?"

The person will go ahead and tell you. Then, you put both cards back on top and reveal the card on top, which of course is different. Now, I know this sounds stupid.

The people I show this trick to always do one of two things:

A. "Whoa! Do that again!"
B. "I know how you did that.."

See, Shyamalan's films are the same way. Except, the audience who flock to his films from crowd "A" are starting to get tired of the card trick. My grandfather told me after teaching me this little trick as a youngster,

"Never show anybody the trick twice."

We all appreciated The Sixth Sense. Even if most of us film nuts from crowd "B" figured it out from the very beginning of the film, we still appreciated the execution of the trick. The problem is, Shyamalan is showing us the same trick over and over again with crappier execution.

[Ghostboy]

My full review. Spoiler free.

[RegularKarate]

I suppose it's nothing new, but this movie blew.

SPOILERS (not really though)

M Knight is predictable to the tee... he always makes movies that have a predictable twist... but this is his worst yet.

The entire movie revolved around a bad, predicatable twist... there really isn't much more to this movie.  This is an Outer Limits or an Alfred Hitchcock presents... MAYBE

I gave half a shit about most of the characters and once I figured out the entire ending (pretty quickly), the whole "what's going on" thing was lost and the movie had nothing left to carry itself on.

not only is the twist unclever and predictable, it tries so hard to be intriguing that it takes away from any substance it would have if you were to strip away the "twist"

this film's grade: Boo minus

[ᾦɐļᵲʊʂ]

Everytime I find myself explaining the story to people, I do pick up on things that I connected together later on that I didn't think of.  So, there's a possibility that I made flash judgments and the movie was better than I give it credit for.

...or maybe I was right, but you can't get everything from a movie the first time.

Either or.

[The Perineum Falcon]

But this is definitely a defining moment for him. Whatever he does next, he's going to have to treat his audience with more respect. It's one thing to want to make a movie about lies. It's another thing to make a movie that is a lie. Understanding that difference and being able to illustrate it is something that seems to have simply escaped him this time out."

I couldn't possibly agree more with this.

I really wish Shyamalan would've done Wuthering Heights instead.

[meatball]

It seems like so many of the reviews are reviewing M. Night and not really The Village as a movie itself.

[Myxo]

Well, the movie didn't spontaneously write and direct itself.

;)

[modage]

Well, the movie didn't spontaneously write and direct itself.

;)

...and produce.

[Sleuth]

SPOILERS

I think something to keep in mind is that he actually stayed away from making a supernatural film this time, and the predictable twist wasn't exactly the end of the movie as it had been in 6th and Unbreakable (I don't count Signs as a twist)

AIGHJT

[RegularKarate]

Spoy Spoy

I don't think putting it seven minutes before credits instead of just three really counts as breaking the formula.

and you're right... Signs just wanted to have a twist... it wasn't an actual twist.

[nix]

If those things were supposed to be "the one's we don't speak of" then why did they speak of them every two minutes?

[Pozer]

spoilers

he found one of the suits of the monsters that we hid underneath the boards in the floor of the room that we happened to put him in.
I hate crap like this in movies.

[meatball]

spoilers

he found one of the suits of the monsters that we hid underneath the boards in the floor of the room that we happened to put him in.
I hate crap like this in movies.

Spoilers

I'm assuming that room was part of their home. He lived his entire life with access to that room, but never found the suit.

[cine]

It's his worst movie..


But really though, who likes movies anyway.

[Myxo]

I like movies fool!!