Gorgeously made and amazingly atmospheric, but the sprawling cast and skill can't make up for a certain thinness in the plot.
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07/29/04
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The Village (2004)
42
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:194
Fresh:82
Rotten:112
Average Rating:5.4/10
Consensus: The Village is appropriately creepy, but Shyamalan's signature twist ending disappoints.
Theatrical Release:Jul 30, 2004 Wide
Box Office: $114,170,863
Synopsis: M. Night Shyamalan's THE VILLAGE finds the renowned writer-director crafting a suspenseful story of a small community whose inhabitants are plagued by fear of the unknown forest that surrounds... [More]
Starring: Joaquin Phoenix, Bryce Dallas Howard, William Hurt, Sigourney Weaver
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
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Reviews for The Village
It’s Splendor in the Grass meets The Blair Witch Project. You can take that any way you’d like to
07/29/04
A high-camp mélange of Brontë’s Wuthering Heights and Skinner’s Walden Two, The Village may be the year’s worst film.
07/29/04
Cancel your Newsweek covers, Shyamalan just flopped off the road to becoming the next Hitchcock.
07/29/04
The Village needs a shot of Viagra ... needs to be scarier, more sinister, more shocking, and more emotional.
07/29/04
...the combination of Shyamalan's natural gift for storytelling and the strongest ensemble cast he's ever featured is impossible to resist.
07/29/04
Shyamalan is a master of mood, tone and style, like Hitchcock, and keeps the scary bits off screen, which in this desensitized world, makes them all the more frightening.
07/29/04
...this gothic thriller is regrettably about as terrifying as an episode of PBS’s Frontier House.
07/29/04
A supernatural thriller for adults.
07/29/04
A timely, powerful, and surprising drama about the dangers of a fear-based culture and the soul-stirring power of love.
07/29/04
this feels like the work of a more mature filmmaker, one who's less hung up with proving his own cleverness
07/29/04
A bewildering disappointment.
07/29/04
Top CriticA film of great elegance and skill that's often delicious to watch, but its surprises don't surprise; in fact, they fall a little flat.
07/29/04
I see a dead movie...Though it's designed as one of Shyamalan's trademark puzzlers, the only real surprise is how stilted and hokey it is.
07/29/04
In his latest foray into the realm of the supernatural, M. Night Shyamalan turns an artful gothic tale into a homework assignment.
07/29/04
Top CriticThe film has a strong, sometimes jolting musical score. But the song that will go through many viewers' minds is never sung in the movie. It's that old Peggy Lee standard, Is That All There Is?
07/29/04
Top CriticShyamalan remains a stilted screenwriter, but Roger Deakins's cinematography is spooky, creepy, eerie all the way.
07/29/04
The Village often wavers, but it never completely fades away.
07/29/04
Top CriticThe Village is probably Shyamalan's subtlest movie and his least scarificating.
07/29/04
Shyamalan deftly turns a familiar fairy tale into an eerie scary tale.
07/29/04
Top CriticLatest News for The Village
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