Sir Monkeypants and I rented The Village on the weekend. I’m not entirely sure if I liked it — the ending felt forced and rushed — but I can say that I was completely engrossed and creeped out on more than one occasion. I think M. Night Shyamalan is a great director and makes beautiful movies with masterful moods.
But my point here is that after watching the movie, I checked out a bunch of reviews online, and I was amazed at how much people seemed to despise this film. I knew it didn’t get great reviews but I couldn’t believe all the bile being thrown around. Some people thought the language was laughable, and that the story took itself too seriously. Some thought that it contained a too-obvious 9/11 message (although I completely didn’t see that at all — I think not being American means that 9/11 isn’t foremost in my mind at all times). The biggest complaint, however, seemed to be that the “twist” ending was too easy to guess.
I think that Night, having built his success on The Sixth Sense, feels too much obligation to provide a twist at the end of his movies. As a result, people always “look” for the twist when watching, and try to guess what it is. Personally I didn’t know anything about The Village so I took it all at face value, and as I said above, I was so engrossed (and, had no problem with suspension of disbelief) that I never once thought about what might lie ahead. I think Night should try directing some films that he hasn’t written. I think he could really be a great director of character pieces and/or spooky films if he removed himself from his own trademark formula.
My biggest complaint about the reviews that I read is that almost all of the negative reviews (which were the majority) included strong hints about the ending. Despite the fact that most of them complained that the ending was too easy to guess, they to a one said something along the lines of, “The setting is a village that seems to be sometime in the late 1800s…” Why did they feel the need to say “seems to be” or “appears to be” or “is supposedly” or something like that? The year, 1897, is firmly established at the start of the film by the date on the gravestone. Without a hint that this year may not be true, I would (and didn’t) never question it. I think these reviewers were rather bitter about being asked not to reveal certain plot points and so slyly thought they’d do their best to give something away. Anyone who read the review would also likely guess the ending, making their complaint — that the twist is way too obvious — self-evident.
I think this is the first time I can remember when I actively objected so strongly to movie reviewers. I usually find reviews, especially mixed ones, to be interesting. But this time for the first time I thought maybe some of them had some sort of alternate agenda.
TurtleHead 
I was personally fairly disappointed in the movie. I had unfortunately heard months and months before the movie came out that the “twist” sucked, and so when I went and saw the movie, in the first 5 minutes I thought, “What would be the most retarded way for this movie to end?” and unfortunately thought up exactly how it did end.
I agree that Night feels too much obligation to provide a twist at the end of his movies. He needs to do a couple movies now with no twists so that people’s expectations are changed.
Beyond the ending, I found the movie engrossing and entertaining, if a bit slow (which is a complaint I have about -all- his movies, except perhaps Signs.) But alas, as was stated in the movie Adaptation, a crappy movie can be redeemed by a good ending. Unfortunately it doesn’t work the other way around… a good movie can be ruined by a disappointing ending.
Now that I think about it, Signs doesn’t really have a twist in it, and it’s by far my favourite of his films. Sure, many things “come together” at the end that you didn’t realize would come together, but I wouldn’t call it a twist.
Anyways, I guess I’m just saying I don’t totally disagree with the reviewers. I believe Ebert stated that the ending was only just short of the “and then they all woke up ending,” and for me, I’d have to agree with him.
Glad to hear that the movie kept you interested. It did for me, too, and I felt that I liked it overall. After I got home from the movie, I checked out the comments on the IMDB and I was blown away by the harshness of the posts.
After reading those comments I came to the conclusion that the problem was that a lot of people view his movies as some sort of IQ test: if they guess the ending very quickly, then the director’s stupid, but if they can’t guess the ending then they’re just less brilliant than the director 🙂
Sure, we expect his movies to have a twist, but I’m not sure he always expects them to be these huge shockers that we don’t see coming (a la The Sixth Sense). I thought The Village slowly gave away the ending all throughout the movie, and that you could watch it without having to worry about what the big surprise at the end was. I thought it was overall a better story than Unbreakable, but not as good as Signs or The Sixth Sense.
I agree with you about the rushed feeling of the movie. There seemed to be a whole subplot between Sigourney Weaver and William Hurt (?) that was left on the cutting room floor. Also, the Adrien Brody role was annoying.
I stopped reading full reviews of movies, prior to seeing a film, after Ebert gave away too much in his Sixth Sense review. Totally ruined that movie experience for me …
I think what surprised me about the reviews is that they were so unilaterally brutal. They weren’t able to set aside their disappointment with the ending to comment on the positives in the film. But I guess what they said in Adaptation is true!
The only Night film that I’ve guessed the ending to is The Sixth Sense, and that’s because a friend of mine told me in advance that it had a “funny sort of ending,” so I was thinking about it right from the start. I still enjoyed the movie and still respected the director’s ability to set the mood, but it remains my least favourite Night film — I always think of it as a simple film based on a trick, unlike his other movies. I guess that figuring out the ending really does take a lot away from the film.
I agree about reading reviews. Now I usually just check Rotten Tomatoes in advance to see how a film is doing. I really enjoy reading reviews afterwards, though. It’s like having a chance to chat about the movie with someone afterwards, someone who actually knows a lot about film.
I read one positive review of The Village that talked about how “only 2 of his 5” films actually had “twist” endings. I’m not sure which two films the reviewer meant (surely The Sixth Sense…and maybe The Village?), but I agree that if you’re not constantly trying to guess the ending, the movie unfolds to a gradual climax rather than shocking you with something quite out of the blue at the end. Most people find Unbreakable to be his weakest film but it’s actually my favourite…I find it to unspool logically rather than just twist at the end.
I wasn’t that fond of the 6th Sense either, even though I didn’t know the ending. I just found it slow. The only Night movie I’ve -really- liked is Signs, and that could be more because of the spiritual aspect. I guess the “twist” in Signs was that the movie really -wasn’t- about aliens, but about faith, and I didn’t realize going into the movie that it would have that twist, and that’s just one of the coolest twists I’ve seen. I like it when I think a movie’s about one thing and then I find out it’s about something else (which I suppose is another reason why I loved Million Dollar Baby.) Subject twists are more fun to me than plot twists. Come to think of it (and now I’m starting to ramble I know), A.I. was like that too, only what the movie was “about” got twisted more than once… that made it a really fun movie for me but I know it annoyed a lot of other viewers.