Unspeakable

[rachelmanija]

My friend Raven and I went to see M. Night Shyamalan's (Best Name Ever) THE VILLAGE tonight. While on the escalator to the theatre, we overheard this conversation:

White-Haired Woman Behind Us: "I hope no one here is going to see THE VILLAGE. My God, what an awful movie."

Gray-Haired Woman Behind Us: "Yes, terrible!"

Me and Raven: look at each other-- uh-oh.

Me: "Uh, we already bought our tickets. Is it really that bad?"

White-Haired Woman: "Oh, dear."

Gray-Haired Woman: "Everybody... Talks... Like... This."

Me and Raven: "Uh-oh."

CUT TO:

Ten minutes before the end of the movie.

Man in audience, loud: "I HATE this movie!"

Everyone else in audience: Cheers and applause.

Comments

[quizzicalsphinx.livejournal.com]

This movie irks me for one reason: I've known the quote surprise twist endquote for about two weeks now. TWO WEEKS. I've been bursting to spoil it for someone and have been met with a vast wall of indifference--not unlike the movie itself, it would seem now.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I figured out the "surprise twist" about fifteen minutes into it.

The trouble with THE VILLAGE is not merely that it was clearly written just so there could be a totally unsurprising and lame "clever twist" at the end. It's that everything leading up to the twist is stupid and illogical, even on its own terms if the twist didn't exist, and in light of the twist almost every element of the entire movie becomes even more stupid and illogical.

This is a movie where just about every single character is constantly making decisions that are not only out of character for them, but which you can't imagine any human being ever making.

That being said, there is a really good and surprising plot twist about two-thirds in that has nothing to do with the stupid Big Twist. Also, Ron Howard's daughter seems talented, though the dialogue is so stilted that it's hard to be sure.

Regarding the dialogue, I am not convinced that characters in a movie set in 1897 have to talk as if they're reading the Babelfish translation of the King James Bible (English to German to English) from a teleprompter. I do not believe that anyone anywhere, any time, has ever talked like that. After the Big Twist, there are at least two more reasons why the characters should not have talked like that, and I'm not including "because it makes the movie suck even more."

Also, the movie is not scary.

[denimjo.livejournal.com]

ROFLMAO...it's not a good sign when a member of the audience gets a better reaction than the MOVIE does. But your anecdote is quite amusing.

Sorry for your misfortune, though.

[yhlee.livejournal.com]

Yeah--I'm torn between feeling bad for you having to sit through a movie of apparent awfulness and being highly amused by your recounting of it.