Let not the bad movie be seen. It encourages others

This afternoon, Zack, Anne, Ryan and I decided on a whim to go see The Village. Now, I admit to having quite a bit of skepticism before seeing it. The Sixth Sense was a really well-crafted, intelligent, tightly executed and suspenseful, yet deeply emotional film with compelling and sympathetic. Although Unbreakable got unfavorable reviews, I actually enjoyed it, despite the shitty ending. Even Signs had some truly scary moments. (Don't get me started on the pantry, though). But there's been a definite downhill slide in M. Night Shyamalan's films since The Sixth Sense, which I am rapidly coming to believe is Shyamalan's zenith. Now at first, the early trailers for this movie looked promising, and Shyamalan managed to corral some A-list stars that I liked - Adrien Brody, Sigourney Weaver and Joaquin Phoenix. However, I began to think about the rather precipitous drop in the quality of Shyamalan's films. By the time we tried to see it for the first time, on opening night, let's just say I wasn't particularly disappointed, although I was surprised, to learn that it had sold out, over an hour before showtime. There were plenty of other movies I wanted to see, and I could easily wait another week before seeing the Village.

After a heavenly brunch at Scharffen Berger's new chocolate-themed (of course) restaurant, Cafe Cacao (which followed a pretty fun and informative lecture/tour at the factory) we decided to kill time at the movies in order to avoid the parking sitch back home at the Crap and Wine fair. There were no Oompa-Loompas to be seen on the tour, by the way. The cafe's interpretation (spinich instead of frisée) of frisée lardon, although seemingly sparse, was absolutely heavenly with an out-of-this world shallot bacon vinaigrette. Oh, and the chocolate desserts were, of course, sybaritic.

On to the review. Caution: for those who haven't seen this, or don't want to be spoiled, I've turned on spoiler text (highlight with your cursor). But be forewarned, 'cause I'm gonna give away the entire damn thing. I don't normally do this, but it was just so bad, I had to bitch.

As you probably know, this movie is about an isolated village surrounded by a wood. The wood is inhabited by creatures that the villagers fear, but have struck some sort of agreement in which neither intrudes on the other. The creatures are monstrous enough that very few of the villagers even dare speak of entering the wood. And unexplicably, red is the color that attracts them. [begin spoiler text]

Now, after I watched the second round of trailers back in May, I thought to myself, "Gosh, it would be really lame if it turns out that this village is actually conceived by a bunch of people disillusioned with violence in modern society [a common theme in Shyamalan movies] who want to create some sort of agrarian commune/utopia. Huh. I doubt that Shyamalan would insult his audience so." But that's all it is, in a nutshell. The monsters are basically the village elders who dress up in rubber suits (that are quite possibly sillier than the ones in Signs, although they're actually red cloaks) in order the scare the other villagers into staying out of the woods. They never explain the reasoning behind designating red as the color to fear (why not purple? why not some other sign?). The characters' complete disregard for the benefits of modern medicine and their supposed loved ones were rather appalling, even before the movie starts. The protagonist, Ivy, has gone blind due to an undisclosed disease, yet her father, an elder, relies solely on the advice of what boils down to a simple country doctor. I mean, if my daughter were going blind, and I knew that there lay a possibility out there to save her vision, or at least find out that if my possibilities were truly limited, I would do all that I could. So much for sympathetic and compelling characters. But once Ivy's fiance gets mortally wounded (by her jealous and mentally disabled companion - so much for an escape from violence), her father, at her request, allows her to go into the woods and get medicine from the other towns for her beloved. He sends her with two escorts who are supposed to take her to a road and wait there for her return, the idea being that since she is blind, she can't report on the sorts of modern stuff might "see". But her escorts bail on her at the earliest opportunity in fear of the monsters, and she is left alone to fend for herself. Dude, even if the monsters are fake, there are plenty of hazards that could befall a lone blind woman traipsing about in the woods. She could fall into a sinkhole (which she does), she could freeze to death from overexposure, she could trip on a branch and break her leg, with no one to help her, so she'd probably die a slow and agonizing death... the list goes on and on. So much for chivalry and a return to civility. Now, at the beginning of the movie, some of the children discover a skinned animal. It's quickly blamed on the monsters, and then one night, they appear in the village, and leave red slashes on the doors. Of course, it's the elders, and it is brought on by one of the villagers' request to search for medicine in other towns. Now, at some point, one of the elders says he doesn't know who left the skinned animals - he thinks it's one of the other elders who just hasn't come clean about it to the other elders (confused yet?). But it turns out that it's supposed to be the mentally disabled guy, who has discovered one of the cloaks after being locked in a room (because he stabbed Ivy's fiance) where it was hidden and ran off with it. However, the skinned animals appeared before he discovered the cloak. Hmmm. Are we supposed to believe that he was skinning the animals (since I guess all mentally disabled people have homicidal tendencies) before he found the cloak? Or did he discover the cloak and figure out the secret, then somehow find a time machine so he could plant skinned animals about the village? It's never clarified. So much for tight execution. And puh-leeze, you're gonna lock a guy up in a room where one of your secret cloaks is hidden for more than a day (it's pretty much assumed that he's in there for more than a day)... Retarded or not, the guy is going to get restless, then get curious or try to get out. So much for Shyamalan's tight storytelling. Oh, and one of the dead giveaways was the use of completely proper English. I'm not saying they have to use a modern vocabulary, but there were no idioms, no colloquialisms, nothing. Even the most rural village, especially as highly developed and sophisticated as much as this one (not technologically, but socially), is going to have some sort of slang. So much for a well-crafted film. More like a bad sociology experiment gone wrong.

[end spoiler text]

There's quite a few more plot holes, but I think I've rambled enough. The only thing I did appreciate was the ending, which was abrupt and did not linger on the details. All in all, I found this movie to be completely predictable, with characters whose motivations and rationalizations quite simply did not make sense. Think I'm being harsh? Especially when I gave Dodgeball a rather glowing (in comparison) review? I used to go into Shyamalan's movies with a certain caliber of expectation. They're billed and marketed as "intelligent" movies. Dodgeball, on the other hand, doesn't try to be high-minded or anything other than what it is. Now I know to lower the bar when it comes to Shyamalan movies.