"The Village" Review(spoiler)

[Premier]

[quote=Monolith]OK... so you've seen the previews I'm assuming. There's what looks like an 18th century American farming village in a meadow. The woods surrounding the meadow are filled with these creepy looking beasts... and the draw in the preview is "we stay in our meadow, and they stay in their woods."

So the movie gets started... and so you're obviously expecting a clash between the people and the creatures. So some kid wanders into the woods, the monsters get pissed and come into town, blah blah blah...

Then, however, you find out half-way through the movie that the monsters aren't real, they're actually costumes that the town "elders" wear to keep all the kids from leaving the village.

Towards the end of the movie, a blind girl has to leave the town to go to another "village" to get medicine for some guy who's dying. So she leaves, walks in the direction she was told, and comes to a big wall of vines. She climbs over it, and suddenly she's standing next to a modern day road, with a jeep traveling down it.

The punchline here is that the "elders" are actually a bunch of people who lived in a big city and were somehow disenchanted with city life - a family member was murdered, etc - and they had all attended the same counseling group. So they decided to leave the city and create this little village and raise their kids as if it was 1700.

So anyway, back to the blind girl. She's on the side of the road, wandering around in dirty ass clothes, when this jeep pulls up. She obviously cant see it, but the guy driving the jeep jumps out (from the scenery, we see that he works for a wildlife reserve - the one she just climbed out of). So he, amazingly, is somehow able to tell "oh, this must be a girl from the secret village hidden in the woods... i better help her get the medicine she needs but not tell anyone what i saw."

What makes that so retarded, is this: if you were driving down the road, and suddenly saw a girl covered in mud randomly wandering around the side of the road, and then she walked up to you saying shit like "SIR, MAKE HASTE, I NEED MORE MEDICINES! I NEED MORE PILLS!"... would the first thing you think of be "she's been living in an 18th century village"? #### no, it'd be "damn this bitch is high, she better stay the #### away from me or I'm gonna run her crackhead ass over."

Anyway, the ranger guy drives off, steals some medicine, gives it to her, and helps her back over the wall. She stumbles back to the village apparently none the wiser... the guy lives, and the movie ends.

Complete and utter garbage. It was pretty cool for the first half, actually... before you realize the monsters are just old men running around in suits. It all goes downhill from there.

[Premier]

This is why I didnt go see the movie. I wanted to see monsters that killed people, not this! Glad I didnt waste 9$

[james t]

For the record, it wasnt a Jeep..... it was a Land Rover. :p

The wife and i saw this last week. I made a point NOT to read/hear any of the spoilers. With that said, i basically agree with the rant above. It sucked. Im a fan of M. Knight thusfar... i liked "Signs" alot. I like the old genre of scaring the crap out of you by not really showing you anything. As the plot unfolded, i caught myself saying "WTF".... sometimes out-loud.

Sorry, im gonna have to give this one 2 thumbs down.

[Hokie]

I have never been so pissed at a movie than i was at this one. We saw it last week and then it was showing at the drive in last night. Its even more stupid when you've already seen it and then you just sit there and pick it apart...

horrible movie

atleast the 2nd feature of the drive-in was Spider Man 2 which was pretty cool

[rfuree11]

then im glad we decided to see the bourne supremacy last night :p

[DeRocha]

Hokie I guess you never saw Battlefield Earth (actually I am not sure if anyone has seen the whole movie). Some comedian said "Battlefield Earth's directors cut is actually 45 min shorter than the theatrical release".

The Village wasn't that great, but wasn't a total dog either.

The problems I had were:

1) Modern aircraft.. Even though they alluded to having a No fly zone around the area I'm sure you'd be able to spy military planes flying way up high. And planes stray into our secure NO fly zones several times per month...

2) The village must be less than 60 miles from civilization. When they sent the blind girl out she was told to walk for a half days journey.. Walking speed is maybe 5mph max; so 5mph x 12hrs = 60 miles max ( I would estimate 15-25 miles max) Again not secluded enough to remain isolated from the outside world.

3) When the girl meets the ranger dude in the landrover Why doesn't he take her wheeling? I was expecting the movie to end with the girl driving into the middle of the village in the rover too bad it would have been cool.

4) The Medicine.. The ranger dude packs up some medicine and bandages for the girl.. Doh! the obvioulsy don't look like some 18th century packaging..(Was Bandaide around back then?).

5) The girl shows up alone on the trip back.. Well if she really loved the guy she would have had the ranger dude give her a hand and hustle her back there asap... Leonardo da Vinci designed flying machines back then so its plausable to use a modern helicopter with raising the suspicions of the town folk.

6) Why didn't Wlliam Hurt just go into town pick up the medicine & supplies. I guess if he did the whole movie would have been over at that point... I mean a half days walk towards civilization is nothing.. He could have been doing this all along to pickup medicine and what not while still maintaining the ruse.

I loved the part where the girl fawns all over the guy professing her love. The next scene she is crying her eyes out..when he rejects her.

[Brans Freestyle]

Seems like another classic movie by shyamalan, has a good idea to it, but the ending just turns out to be horrible. He tries to put these twists into the stories that make people go 'oh wow didn't see that coming,' but it just ends up being, 'wow ... wtf?'

[DeRocha]

Originally Posted by Brans Freestyle

'wow ... wtf?'

LOL..Exactly...WTF was he thinking.

[Premier]

Originally Posted by james t

For the record, it wasnt a Jeep..... it was a Land Rover. :p

The wife and i saw this last week. I made a point NOT to read/hear any of the spoilers. With that said, i basically agree with the rant above. It sucked. Im a fan of M. Knight thusfar... i liked "Signs" alot. I like the old genre of scaring the crap out of you by not really showing you anything. As the plot unfolded, i caught myself saying "WTF".... sometimes out-loud.

Sorry, im gonna have to give this one 2 thumbs down.

Well, I didnt see it or I would have cought that

I totally agree. I was a fan of signs also. I am really lookingforward to the newexorcist movie... everytime I see the commercial I get chills.

I hope that M. Night Shamalamalamalama does better next time.

[etc]

I liked the movie. I think people's disappointed comes from expecting a horror movie, which it was sort of marketed as.

1) Modern aircraft.. Even though they alluded to having a No fly zone around the area I'm sure you'd be able to spy military planes flying way up high. And planes stray into our secure NO fly zones several times per month...

M knight. was smart to address that so quickly. Lets say a few planes stray in, I'm sure you can convince a village ,who believes in red hooded creatures, that the planes they might see are "flying creatures we do not speak of". :p

2) The village must be less than 60 miles from civilization. When they sent the blind girl out she was told to walk for a half days journey.. Walking speed is maybe 5mph max; so 5mph x 12hrs = 60 miles max ( I would estimate 15-25 miles max) Again not secluded enough to remain isolated from the outside world.

It's a walled off "Wildlife Reservation".

4) The Medicine.. The ranger dude packs up some medicine and bandages for the girl.. Doh! the obvioulsy don't look like some 18th century packaging..(Was Bandaide around back then?).

The medicine was given to the elders, they probably got rid of the evidence quickly.

5) The girl shows up alone on the trip back.. Well if she really loved the guy she would have had the ranger dude give her a hand and hustle her back there asap... Leonardo da Vinci designed flying machines back then so its plausable to use a modern helicopter with raising the suspicions of the town folk.

Her father told her half the truth, and warned her not on let people know about the village.

6) Why didn't Wlliam Hurt just go into town pick up the medicine & supplies. I guess if he did the whole movie would have been over at that point... I mean a half days walk towards civilization is nothing.. He could have been doing this all along to pickup medicine and what not while still maintaining the ruse.

I agree. Every movie needs an adventure, plus he took an oath.

[IAmTodd]

I liked it. I was expecting it to be more of a horror movie than a drama. But I liked it all the same. I'd like to go see it again so I can pick it apart. :P did I mention I liked the movie?

[leenjen]

we also thought the village sucked. we went to see it opening night in a crowded theatre. most of the people seemed to agree. on the way walking out there were a lot of negative comments. it was a waste of money and over two hours of my life that i will never get back.

[TunnelFear]

I was disappointed when I found out that the monsters were fake...I was like WTF? But then I thought the movie redeemed itself, somewhat, with the twist ending. But alas, I was expecting a horror movie, but thankfully I only spent $2 to see it At the local drive-in you get to see 3 movies for $6

[LOGJOCKY]

IT SUCKED SO BAD!!!!! the monsters were fake and that ending was the worst one ever. "Lucious, Im back.."..WTF if that. The other 2 were really good but this one sucked.