The Village

-Touchtone (2004)

Summary:

There’s a village in the middle of nowhere where you’d think some really scary stuff would happen, but then you’d be wrong. Dead wrong.

My Thoughts:

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. M. Knight Shyamalan is a great director, maybe even a great filmmaker, but he’s not a great writer. He proves this once again with The Village. When I first saw the trailer I thought, “Wow that looks like an awesome horror movie!” Then after thinking about it for awhile I thought, “What am I thinking? I’m sure there’s some sort of stupid twist that will mess the premise up.” Of course, after finally watching The Village on DVD I was let down. Unfortunately, this film isn’t like Unbreakable where you can overlook the clunky twist because the story is so well done; the twist actually ruined much of the enjoyment of this film.

The Village starts out pretty well. The viewer is brought to an isolated 1800s era village that's surrounded by nothing but wilderness. The difference between this village and any other 1800s era community is that the surrounding forest is inhabited with horrible creatures called, “Those We Do Not Speak Of.” These creatures and the villagers live in a truce with each not crossing the other's border. It is explained that the reason that the people of the village first moved to their strange location was to leave society of the big cities and its evils. In essence, the creatures that surround them are not just evil creatures, but the embodiment of the things that the villagers sought to run away from.

Since this is a film that needs a plot, things start happening between the two sides that threatens the safety of the community. Lucius Hunt, played by Joaquin Phoenix, is a fearless young man that doesn’t quite fit in with everyone else. He wants to go through the woods in order to get some medicine, since a young boy recently died that could have been saved. At around the same time he discovers that a mentally ill (or just plain slow) villager named Noah, played by Adrien Brody, has possibly been going into the woods violating their laws without consequence. Lucius believes that Noah is able to do so because of his pure heart. Lucius deduces that he can do the same, because his intentions are also pure. He reports this to the town's ruling council who deny his request. Later, he faces his fears and crosses the border momentarily with the result that during the same night one of the creatures invades the town and marks everyone’s door as a warning. In addition to this drama there’s also a very neatly played love story between Lucius and Ivy Walker, played by Bryce Dallas Howard. The dialogue is sharp and the acting is superb, except for one actor in particular. Since M. Knight Shyamalan feels the need to insert himself in every one of his films, he appears in The Village giving his single worst performance to date.

Spoilers Ahoy, Matey. You’ve Been Warned!

Ivy and Lucius decide to marry, but their plans are interrupted when Noah unexpectedly stabs Lucius in a move that can only stem from jealousy. Ivy demands permission to go to the town in order to get Lucius life saving medication. Her father Edward, played by William Hurt, tells her the town’s big secret before allowing her to go on her quest. It turns out that the elders of the village invented the monsters in order to keep future generations from leaving the confines of their town. At this revelation my disappointment reached its apex. Everything after this was a giant let down since almost all fear of the forest and the secrets it held were gone. Shalyaman tries to inject fear back into the rest of the film by having Edward mention that he picked those woods for settlement because there were real rumors of monsters in the woods, however once the cat was out of the bag I knew there weren’t going to be any real supernatural threats. Shalyaman had blown his scare factor load in a rather messy way. The only real tension left was if Ivy would succeed in her quest or not. In one final and pointless twist, it’s revealed that Edward used his vast inheritance to hide their village in the middle of a giant animal sanctuary during our present time.These last two twists morph the film from horror with some heavy symbolism, to a weak suspense film that's message will pound you in the head with a sledge hammer. Even if it wasn’t revealed that the outside world was in fact the present and the village founders hadn’t formed some sort of Amish hippy colony, the same message could have come across.

I have a feeling that if I watched The Village again I might be less harsh with it since my expectations have changed, but then again I might like it less knowing that I’ll have to sit through the second half of a film, which contains no real frightening moments. I guess the the only exception to this is when Noah gets his “just desserts.” It’s actually one of the longest queasy feeling film moments I’ve seen and it can attest to M. Knight’s great sense of direction.

This DVD features a THX optimized Dolby 5.1 surround sound mix and it shows. The sounds moody and fit the content of the film perfectly. The picture quality is also well suited for the content of the film. The yellow gold of the “good” side and the deep red of the “bad” side looked great on my monitor.

Extras:

The menus are appropriately creepy for the initial feeling and tone of the film. Not to spoil anything, but some of them provide a few scares of their own. The special features break down into a simple list of items. The first is a series of featurettes entitled, “Deconstructing the Village.” It’s a standard film doc that might be useful for anyone who was really into this film.

There’s over ten minutes of deleted scenes included on this edition with non-optional directors commentary. There’s a reason for these cuts, which is a shame since I’m usually a big fan of deleted scenes.

“Bryce’s Diary” is a little small segment from the actress about her role. I guess this is a good extra for those interested in acting, but I thought it was rather pointless overall.

As with all of M. Night’s previous DVD releases we are “treated” with another segment from his home movies. This time he shows us an Indiana Jones type of film staring, guess who? Surprisingly, this is the best M. Knight home movie I’ve seen so far, which is kind of sad when I think about it.

Finally, there’s the “Production Photo Gallery” that contains a load of photos from the film’s production. Yippee.

Score:

Film: 7.0

Extras:  6.5 (the motion menus earn this one an extra +.5 power-up)

Edition: 7.0

-Paul