After liking the Sixth Sense, hating Unbreakble, hating Signs, I had somewhat mixed emotions about going to see the Village.
Needless to say, the Village was nowhere near a great movie, but it did something to keep me interested.
The acting was above par with what they were given. William Hurt was incredible, and I don't think he has ever made a bad movie. Joaquin Phoenix won me over, trying to play the martyr, and it was only fitting that he gets taken out half-way through the movie (Genius plot-device). Adrien Brody was fabulous with what he was given, and Bryce Dallas Howard was great as well.
Unfortunately, the dialogue was very hokey at times, and seemed to dredge on too many times. How many times do we need to know that red is the bad color, or how many times do we have to know that Judy Greer's character has fallen in love. M. Night is known for his use of symbolic colors and this movie was no exception, but it was overdone. I thought we were in Color War.
As for the twist, it was good, but it could have delivered in so many more entertaining ways, but because M. Night needs to have some underlying message in all his movies, we are forced to suffer. We didn't need M. Night's dialogue at the end, and towards the end it just dredged on.
In conclusion, M. Night seems like he wants his movies to be a combination of David Lynch and Woody Allen movies, incredibly strange, yet having insightful messages about society or other issues, and at this he fails. This movie falls somewhere between The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, right in the middle, with it being nowhere near as good as The Sixth Sense, and better than Unbreakable.