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Originally posted by Living/Dead
I saw this movie Friday and I've been thinking about it quite a lot since then, my final opinion of this movie is that it was a huge disapointment. First let me say I'm a huge fan of Night's prior movies, so I knew what to expect when I walked into the theater. The Village proves that Night needs to stop making movies with twists, he concentrates way to much on surprising the audience and forgets to create an interesting story. I'm almost positive that he thought up some twists in his mind and then threw a story together, thus resulting in a dull movie with a few interesting scenes. Before we knew the monsters were fake there were some genuinely frightening scenes, I thought it was very cool to actually show a full shot of the monsters so early in the film instead of hiding them the entire time. The secret IMO was given away far to early, especially given the fact that it was a lame secret. For one thing it makes me completely uninterested in viewing it a second time. Also...it's lame...I don't know what else to say??? Roger Ebert said it best in his movie review, it's about one step away from waking up at the end and saying "it was all a dream". After the big showdown with the monster we already knew was fake the story ends for me, nothing else of interest happens. So they were in modern times, so what? Somehow through suttle clues I already knew this and wasn't surprised...not to mention didn't care. Want more complaints??? The acting (which gets a lot of accolades) was atrocious, just about everyone was on the same line playing perfect souls. Not sure if it was the bad dialouge they had to work with but something wasn't clicking. One last complaint, the ending sucked, it was just a cutoff and a pretty bad way to end a slow moving melodrama. - Here's were I finally get positive - Bryce Dallas Howard was stunning , the only bright spot in acting. I honestly feel she should get some kind of nomination even though the movie wasn't great. Night's visual style was also great, loved the shots in the forest and his style during the creature sequences. - This is where I end the postives - I am being a little over critical on this movie but that's because I expected so much more from Night, being a big fan of his. I honestly feel this could have been on of my favorite movies in years, too bad Night ruined it with a shotty, witless attempt at style.
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Agreed. I am certain that I would have liked this film a lot more had I:
1. Never seen any of Night's previous movies, therefore not knowing what to expect.
2. Not seen the previews that caused me to think it was going to be scary.
Like I said before, it's really not a bad film if you watch it with absolutely no expectations at all. But, with a director like Night, that's pretty hard to do.