I think it’s worth seeing just to see future mega-star Bryce Howard in her breakout role. She owns the movie, even though she’s completely unconvincing as a blind person. She gets around better than I do. I guess Shyamalalan thought the movie would be too slow even for him if she spent the whole time running into stuff.
I haven’t seen the movie (and after reading all this I’m not sure I want to). But the idea of deranged people isolating themselves from society and following only what some “elder” tells them is, unfortunately, not farfetched. Think about Jonestown in the '70s, or the Branch Davideans more recently, or the entire country of North Korea today. Without TV, radio, computers, newspapers, mail or even basic social contact outside your own community, what are you going to know? And one good scare in early childhood puts a damper on certain kinds of curiosity. And when the evidence of their own eyes conflicts with what they are being told, some people are willing to reject the evidence because it’s less painful than rejecting their fundamental beliefs.
It sounds like the real plot flaw is the idea that no one from the outside would try to get IN to “a nature preserve.” Birdwatchers, hunters, real estate developers, cops, nature funds, tax authorities, zoning officials, drug enforcement agents, union organizers, fire inspectors, charity fundraisers, etc., etc.? Not to mention the afore-mentioned obnoxious teens. NOBODY ever wondered what was going on behind those gates? Even billionaires can’t pay off everybody.
I thought that was Noah, given that was the time all the skinned animals showed up? Maybe I’m wrong.
They are an alien specie, but they aren’t THE alien specie, the one that built the ship and came over here. They are just the equivalent of our dogs that have been trained to “fetch” humans while minimizing risk to the intelligent specie waiting on-board the spaceships for their human (genetic) samples. Which explain why they are also expendable and pretty dumb.
About The Village, I thought it was decent althought I could have waited for the DVD release… The biggest hole for me is that
Why didn’t they bring a large stock of medication? Kids wouldn’t know the difference. Of course, if you bring a computer or somesuch technology, questions are going to get asked but for drugs they just have to say they are magic potions.
My guess is that they wanted to live the fantasy of living in the 1800s at 100%… I can accept that in a way - you just have to look at people in real life who do that ;-). I’m also certain that they would be quite capable at brainwashing the kids into not going outside the perimeter. You just have to look at religions…
Don’t forget cameo by washed-up forest pixie “Fern Gully”, who tries to prevent the red lines from being drawn on the trees
~S&S
I figure I’d toss this onto this thread instead of starting another, as answering it involves spoiling it…
One review I saw summarized somewhere claimed that the movie plot is just a ripoff of a well known fairy tale. OK, read the spoilers, no matching fairy tale springs to mind.
Any guesses what the reviewer was thinking of?
The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that this movie would have been more interesting if the big surprise had been revealed early on, and the movie had just examined the process, themes and consequences of such an attempt at a Utopian community. Also, I’d like to have seen the meeting at which they all agreed to never use contractions again.
Ooohhh. I didn’t pick up on that, I guess. Thanks, Abbie Carmichael.
Well, that’s very interesting, but what in the movie tells us this?
Such tremendous cinematography, fine preformances by most, excellent set design.
Pitiful plotline with holes big enough to fill up a woodlot in Pennsylvania. The director needs to stop trying to replicate the surprise ending done so well in The Sixth Sense and put his talent for creating mood and atmosphere into something more substantial. With a worthy script and more maturing and insight, he might become a teller of great sagas along the lines of David Lean.
I had actually figured out the ending (though not the reason) before I saw the film. All it took was the title of the film, the previews, and the mention of a surprise ending.
I did get to meet one of my sister’s friends (who is in the film) on opening night. Cherry Jones plays Mrs. Clackity.
I saw the movie tonight, and it was…meh. Bryce Howard was good, but I have to agree on her being unconvincing as a blind person. Also, count me in as the mood being well done (I jumped a few times) but the writing being awful. And William Hurt…is the captain…of…dramatic…pauses.
Reading this thread made me think of something - if these people have no contact with the outside world, and the clothing appears homemade, what are they using to make the clothes?
And I didn’t understand this artistic/dramatic choice:
When Noah-as-monster is attacking Ivy in the woods, why does the camera intercut shots of the trees against the sky? I completely didn’t understand this choice. If it was to spare us from gore, then I could understand, but clearly there wasn’t any.
On the bright side, when it comes to movies like this, I never see the twist coming. I mean I might know that there’s going to be one, but I will rarely if ever guess what it is before it happens.
That’s what frustrated me about the popularity of The Sixth Sense. I wanted to grab people by the shoulders and shake them and yell in their faces that there was no twist ending. He died in the beginning. The kid can see ghosts. Put two and two together it equals REALLY FUCKING OBVIOUS!
It amazes me that thousands (millions?) of people see a man get shot in the stomach in close range, and assume he survives it when the bullet would have shattered his spine and put a huge hole in his back, gushing blood all over the bed. That’s just the most obvious clue, but they were sprinkled throughout the movie (nobody other than the kid ever spoke to the dead guy directly).
That wasn’t a twist ending, that was a lot of unobservant people who apparently turn their brains off when they go the movies.
That’s why I don’t understand why people expect a twist ending now and then act disappointed when they don’t get it. I’ve never seen Signs (the premise annoys me a lot so I probably never will) but Unbreakable didn’t have a twist, unless the whole time you assumed everybody was absolutely sane. He doesn’t give twist endings. He gives the most obvious endings you’ll ever see, but somehow cleverly disguises it so the viewing audience slaps their heads and say “Oh! I never saw that coming!” I figured out half of the twist just from the trailers for The Villiage alone.
I figure most of the people who see this movie are setting themselves up for disappointment by expecting the twist ending, which is doubly frustrating because they have no reason to.
Well, what doesn’t? It is the only logical explanation that fits the facts, at least as I remember them: they could only be aliens, since they simultaneously appear on every part of the planet while enormous ships hover over the cities but they are too damn dumb to have originated the obviously superior technology…
And it does put an extra interesting twist to the movie: the humans didn’t really defeat the aliens by discovering their weaknesses, they only put an end to the real alien’s data gathering, that was by that time completed successfully anyway. Humanity is still scheduled for destruction, either thru a bio-engineered virus or a modified alien organism that will have it’s weaknesses eliminated. What happenned to the family was indeed just a coincidence that has been rationalized ex post facto as divine intervention.
Once again, interesting, but I never got that from the movie. Just because something gives the movie an extra interesting twist, it doesn’t mean that it’s in there.
There is only one captain of dramatic pauses and his name is Kirk. (not that I’m saying that he uses them well)
Well, the “recon dogs” theory is interesting, but to be fair, you didn’t mention anything specific from the movie as evidence.
As for the rationalizing, I’m on board, and I’m one of the most churchified people on this board. I’m tired of all manner of things being attrribute to God. “I got a green light because of Jesus”. Yeah, well, maybe.
Since the themes MNS is exploring aren’t unique, I don’t see why the themes alone should make his movies worthwhile. It’s arguable that Anaconda explores themes of man vs. nature, betrayal, and individual priorities; that doesn’t make it a good movie. (It should be pointed out, nor does any of this stop them from making a sequel…)
Just saw a commercial that decreed “‘Ebert & Roeper’ call it, ‘One of the year’s best!’”
Technically that’s true, since SOMEONE on the show entitled “Ebert & Roeper” said that, but I have to think that Ebert winces just a little every time his name is associated positively with a movie that he loathes.
I get the feeling that the rest of this quote is, “examples of a load of crap.”
Unfortunately not. Roeper really liked the movie and really said he thought it was one of the best films he’d seen this year.