Popular reviews

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  Review by josh lewis ★★★★ 5

  "there are secrets in every corner... do you not feel it? do you not see it?"

  an achingly sad movie about the dangers of collectively denying the reality of tragedy and suffering and constructing a deceptive mythology of public misinformation for a presumed greater good. pain is a natural part of progress, and true hope/faith would be allowing people the agency to figure that out for themselves. that this came out in 2004 and people were really like "that's stupid no one would ever do that" is just... lol.

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  Review by SilentDawn ★★★★★ 33

  95/100

  Serenely volatile cinema, and as gorgeously engulfing as anything M. Night Shyamalan has ever crafted. I usually try to not be one of those viewers that proclaims a particular film as "misunderstood" or "underrated", but I still can't fathom how the general audience sees this as a "bad Twilight Zone episode", especially because even (and not only) on a surface level, The Village is astonishing.

  With Roger Deakins' cinematography establishing unprecedented atmosphere and James Newton Howard scoring one of the finest soundtracks of the 21st Century; The Village flourishes because of its visual/aural elements, both of which compliment the tender love story at its core. M. Night tackles this tale with the mindset of being a genuine artist with…

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  Review by I.V. ★★★★ 2

  “How do you know he has feelings for me?”
  “He never touches you.”

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  Review by Wes ★★★★½

  This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

  me and my friends in our little minecraft server

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  Review by esther ★★★★★ 11

  normally i think that talking about movies this way is a waste of time but i truly genuinely in my heart of hearts believe that if you don't like this movie it's because you're an idiot

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  Review by Brianna

  why didn’t people like this. i don’t get it

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  Review by David Sims ★★★★½ 3

  My favorite Shyamalan. It's beautiful, it has a dynamic lead performance, and its story is beyond the simple points about recovery of faith that his other hits try to make. The twist is silly, maybe, but it's also critical of itself in a way that feels intentional. Of course this movie's twist wasn't going to work forever. That's the whole point.

  the lovely David Ehrlich talked about The Village with Griffin & I on this episode of Blank Check.

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  Review by Josiah Morgan ★★★★★ 18

  I am doing so fucking badly right now but this film makes everything better. A set of characters who fought to escape a system and did, ultimately imposing another set of constraints upon themselves because the only way us humans know how to function is through constructs and control; bedtime stories meant to give children nightmares, fascism, capitalism and corporate greed. The only way we know of to process ourselves is through meta-cognitive art; it is entirely genius that the end reveal of the film reconstructs the entire process of Shyamalan's storytelling, as contemporary life continues to be a vicious cycle even for those who have managed to escape it: living outside human construct is all very well until you…

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  Review by esther ★★★★★ 2

  The camera, the editing, the score, the performers, the characters, all of them reaching out and having faith that they'll be pulled in the right direction. All guided by imperceptible senses, and appropriately erratic for them.

  The sad part is that they can never get to the end. Ivy knows the whole truth, but she'll never know that she does. The only closure is in falsehood. Knowledge is ignorance, and ignorance is bliss. But in the end, Shyamalan is no cynic. He ends on a note of hope, even though we know it's hope born from a lie. Hope is hope, the film argues. Shyamalan's said that his entire career.

  I'd love to read an argument against this film that isn't based in banal "plot hole" nitpickery. This is extraordinary filmmaking.

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  Review by DirkH ★★★½ 19

  M. Night Shyamalan gets a lot of criticism, some justified some not so much.

  To me Shyamalan always started out as a storyteller, who later grew into a director and ended up falling for the ego trap created around him by himself and the industry. This is perhaps his last well balanced and decent film.

  Now, my appreciation of it stems in everything that precedes the obligatory twisty turny ending. It's not that I find the ending bad, or the twist weak, but I'd have been really surprised had he been able to finish this story normally. Towards the end the narrative seems to have one purpose in mind and one purpose only and that is to get you to…

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  Review by Branson Reese 5

  When I was in 8th grade we moved to a new school. There was a huge deal at my new school where the week before I got there a naturalist had given a talk at an assembly and been roasted within an inch of his life. I wasn't there but it was apparently nasty beyond the scope of usual 8th grader nastiness. He showed a picture of a baby deer and kids were shouting that he had cummed on the deer and that's why it had white spots on it. Kids shouting that he should go missing. That kind of thing. Just absolutely out of control. The entire school had to write him apology letters. Even me. I wasn't there…

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  Review by reibureibu 12

  Perhaps one of the greatest reveals in cinema specifically because it takes the ideas of faith and belief being wrested with throughout and pulls back entire scopes until it encompasses its very history. The truth of the dilemmas we encounter in life can be viewed entirely from the perspective we choose to take, which is to say that 'truth' only has meaning insomuch as it relates to our personal truth yet the significance of this truth defines not just our world but those of those around us. In that sense ethics remain tricky (as they should be) as they are dependent upon our values yet the inherent 'trickiness' of these dilemmas grant us the right to, at any point, revoke…