The Village

Touchstone Pictures presents

Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Bryce Dallas Howard, Adrien Brody, William Hurt

Directed by: M. Night Shyamalan

Rating: ****

Plot: A small village in 1890 lives a mainly peaceful life. We finally realize that the woods that surround the village have some spooky inhabitants who the leaders of the village have had peace with for some time. Now for a reason unknown to us or them the truce has ended and the creatures enter the village and some lovely characters must deal with it.

Acting: Joaquin Phoenix is an interesting guy. The rules he picks or are picked for him are very interesting. He and Bruce (Die Hard) Willis seem to be M. Night's favorite actors. This makes sense since both men can act very well. In this film Phoenix plays a very different role then he did in the hit movie Signs. Here he plays a very silent and conflicted young man who finds himself loving a local blind girl played amazingly well by Bryce Dallas Howard (Ron Howard's daughter). These two characters alone make the movie very unique and interesting. Funny thing is that Joaquin Phoenix does such a good job at playing a guy who is so silent that it is hard to go into detail about the acting or the character. So to move on Bryce Dallas Howard became very impressive in this movie. When the movie starts she actually seemed horrible but as the movie went on I came to realize she was giving off an amazing performance. You can plan to see her in more movies in the future. Academy Award winner Adrien Brody plays a man with mental problems and I guess he does a good job at being a man with mental problems. He actually is over shadowed in a movie with very impressive acting performances. I'd like to see him actually do another stand out role like he did in the Pianist but whatever. Now the real stand out performance which I believe should be nominated is William Hurt, very calm and very real his character seemed more human then anything in this movie. Very stunning and powerful performance in a role in a movie that you just wouldn't expect it to be there. I was impressed.

Directing/Writing: Now I will say this I will not go into any details about this movie so I don't give anything away that has always been my stance in my reviews is that I will break things down but won't give anything away. I must also say I loved all three other M. Night movies. Unbreakable is one of the favorite movies of the last ten years. What you have to admire about M. Night movies is that he always tries to build and do more and learn while he makes a movie. Style changes through every film which is rare thing in Hollywood. Also you have to love his Twilight Zone like scripts. Only this time I think that idea of him bit him in the butt. Before this movie even came out people were bashing it and trying to figure out the secrets of the movie. If you do that your not going to have any fun watching it. If you don't let yourself get pulled into a movie your just going to be unhappy. So many people will already have their guns drawn at this movie and you can see that in many reviews in news papers to web sites. You hear the same complaints over and over again. Here there is I guess twist but the movie sets it up right from the beginning so no one should be that surprised as things unfold. I also think M. Night tried to grow as a film maker by trying different types of filming styles. Just in simple standards though this movie works in many ways. Is it fucking scary!!! No. There are some very spooky moments which will leave your skin crawling but this movie isn't about that. Like Signs, that film had some scary moments but mainly that movie was about one man regaining his faith in God and life. Here this movie is mainly a tragic love story, with some scary moments. I think that alone pissed people off expecting to be scared out of their skin and be watching a scary as hell horror movie. If you were expecting that your kind of stupid if you have seen Sixth Sense or Unbreakable or even Signs. M. Night is more about story and character than thrills and chills. My only problems with the movie is it leaves some interesting characters in the back ground just so he could keep some creepy scenes in. Also editing seemed real sloppy in places but these are small little things that overall don't matter.

Overall: The Village is a good movie, not the best of M. Night but still a lot of fun. With some great acting and some big thrills this is a perfect date movie. So don't listen to your friends who are trying to be cool by saying this movie sucks and don't listen to over the top reviewers who believe this movie blows chunks because the twist at the end was lame. This movie is much more then what people believed it was and how it was advertised. This is a movie no one should miss.