August 11, 2004

What I really thought of The Village

This was a great movie. The reason I posted bad comments on it was a joke, hoping people wouldn't feel overhyped about it. But upon further investigation, just about every review ripped it apart.

I hope for your sake, if you haven't seen the movie -- you haven't read any of the reviews out there.

Ultimately choosing to see a movie must be of your own choice, regardless of critics, and, to prevent your very own opinions from being skewed, you try to avoid other influences.

Anyway, back to the movie for which I expected to be scary, was indeed scary. I've never cried out during a movie and I did, just from something actually quite quick and innocent, but startled me enough to cry out "AH!".

Joaquin Phoenix was okay, but the real performance came from a newcomer, Bryce Dallas Howard. She plays a blind girl who ends up being one of the more major characters in the plot. For me, that was a big part of the satisfaction I had in the movie, in her performance. Anyway, from this point on if you haven't seen the movie, stop reading.

My fascination with M Night Shyamalan movies are that they always have surprises and twists, things that pretty much blow your mind away at the end, like Bruce Willis being dead in Sixth Sense, or Samuel Jackson blowing up the train just to test Bruce Willis in Unbreakable, or an asthma attack that ultimately saves a young boy from being killed by aliens in Signs. But the trouble is people watch his movies expecting a big twist, so they become suspicious of everything.

And of course the other thing with Shyamalan is his use of sound and lighting. Some really innocent scenes he can intensify so well with sound effects and music, and he makes things so eery from the lighting if needs to. He uses good contrast in colors, to signify different things. There are awful movies out there that are too dark, or too bland, but he mixes it up really well.

There, I made this review sort of not give anything away, in case you kept reading.

I can't rate this one with I, Robot, Bourne Supremacy, King Arthur or Spiderman 2, because those were all action movies. This was a suspense/thriller/romance, and so I can't compare. The romance aspect of it was really nice. Very thrilling, suspenseful, and also funny at times.

10/10.

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