The Village

THE VILLAGE: M. Night Shyamalan has become an iconic director rivaling the early days of Spielberg. It isn't often that the man behind the camera is the main draw for an audience. Hell, the recent VILLAGE trailers showcased THE SIXTH SENSE, UNBREAKABLE, and SIGNS more than the actual film they were trying to get you to see. So now here's the problem with what M. Night has become to represent to the film that you're going to watch. He bamboozled us in THE SIXTH SENSE with a surprise ending that, believe it or not, was completely unexpected during its day. So, we resolved not to be fooled again, even though, ironically, that's what we loved about THE SIXTH SENSE. So UNBREAKABLE releases and we come to expect the big finish, and even though we might have known what was coming, the movie was entertaining and a fantastic take on the superhero convention. SIGNS may have completely been ruined by its total lack of surprise. Shyamalan was trying for something else, a down-home alien invasion story with suspense, that ultimately crashed when we find out the meaning of all this is so someone can regain their faith again. It had nothing to do with new worlds, possibilities, exploration, or imagination. Shyamalan could certainly be given some latitude for trying to aim in a different place, to go for the anti-CLOSE ENCOUNTERS or the anti-INDEPENDENCE DAY, but a different aim is not necessarily a good one. So, THE VILLAGE hits theatres this weekend, promising the surprise ending again, actually not even hiding the fact that there's going to be one. For the first hour of this, Night asks A LOT from the audience, assuring us the surprise ending will make all of this worthwhile. And what is this? It's not constant scares or a clever puzzle--it's normal life in a simple bygone-era village, and the relationships that the people have with each other, mostly dominated by Ivy (Bryce Howard, Ron's daughter) and Lucius (Joaquin Phoenix). The elder townspeople have secrets all around, mysterious boxes containing...something. And no one is to leave the village into the woods because there are creatures there who have an understanding not to trespass into the town as long as the people don't trespass on their territory. The setup is great, the delivery is short. This would make for an excellent short story in the middle of many spook stories, because you could essentially trim an hour off this movie and get the same effect of the...SURPRISE! that comes later, which I and a few others guessed early, early into the film. And that's what M. Night has begged us to do, sit through his movie just to get to the surprise. Think of THE SIXTH SENSE as if it was just Malcolm (Bruce Willis) and Cole (Haley Joel Osment), talking about Cole's problems for two hours, a drama about a boy's inability to cope with the outside world, but with no ghosts until the very end. And if you can imagine that setup, then you'll realize how empty a surprise ending it would have been--THE VILLAGE allows us to see a movie with nothing going for it except the ending. It also stars a bevy of good actors with William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver, and Adrien Brody as a mentally-challenged villager with the key to a good portion of the story. M. Night makes his Hitchcockian cameo also. So where does that leave us? I believe Shyamalan has to go back to the drawing board, because he needs to learn the art of construction again, that the surprise can only be as good as the rest of the film.

I will discuss THE MANCHURIAN CANDIDATE later.