Related articles and links |  1 of 7

You don't need a sixth sense to detect that many of M. Night Shyamalan's fans are aggravated with him.

In truth, they've been disgruntled ever since the filmmaker's follow-up to The Sixth Sense failed to deliver the same kinds of thrills and surprises as the story about the boy who could "see dead people." Unbreakable was, instead, a moody movie about the origins of a superhero. And if you forgive its awkward conclusion; it's a textured, complex, and soulful story about courage, identity, and conscience.

His next film, Signs, took the conventions of old B-grade horror, mixed them with the elements of War of the Worlds-style sci-fi, and lured audiences into a challenging dialogue about the rewards of faith. Religious press reviewers were impressed and enthusiastic. Mel Gibson's role as an ex-minister arguing with God played as an interesting prologue to the actor's eventual plunge into controversy as a Passion-play director. But many fans complained that Signs' aliens were hokey and that the ending, more meditative than explosive, was a letdown.

Now The Village is here. Over the weekend, it raked in nearly $51 million, but once again the audience is split. A few mainstream critics praise Shyamalan's use of metaphor and theme, while most complain that it lacks good scares and a satisfying twist ending.

The Village is a simple story, peppered with fairy tales, about a small settlement of Americans living like Puritans (but without the religion) and maintaining a fragile "truce" with monsters that live in the woods nearby. When tragedy befalls the town, one brave blind woman (Ron Howard's daughter Bryce Dallas Howard) must venture out for help from the "towns," risking her life for the good of others. Can she make it through the forest without being devoured by the lurking phantoms?

Lisa Ann Cockrel (Christianity Today Movies) writes that the movie "does offer a few twists, but … what's truly unexpected is that, in the middle of the tingles up your spine, The Village is a strong, engaging character drama. More than that, it's a love story. [The movie] is at its most engrossing when exploring and revealing the intentions and motivations of its characters. The ability of fear to control us, and the way we use it to control others, plays out across the span of the movie as does the driving and protective nature of love."

"The Village's greatest strength is a moral core that never devolves into moralistic propaganda," writes Megan Basham (National Review, formerly of Christian Spotlight). "Some critics will undoubtedly dismiss [it] as being too light on thrills to qualify as a thriller. And they would be right if that were all [Shyamalan] set out to accomplish. Instead, it seems Shyamalan is striving to move from a scary-movie prodigy who flirts with significant themes to a substantial cinematic artist who only flirts with scares. What The Village lacks in pacing, it makes up for in stunning Wyeth-inspired art direction and an acting debut that is for once worthy of its buildup."

Bob Smithouser (Plugged In) observed the audience at his screening, which entered the theatre with enthusiasm, and exited with "disappointment. Instead of a supercharged adventure, what they got was a soberly paced, feature-length 'thriller' that might have worked better as a half-hour Twilight Zone episode."

But he adds that the film's subtext "is worth talking about. The Village works very well as a metaphor infused with socially significant ideas and transcendent themes. Of course, most viewers will be too busy trying to track Shyamalan's cinematic slight of hand to follow it on that level."

next page... |  1 of 7

share this page

August (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48