The Village

The Good:
This was the first time I had seen Bryce Dallas Howard, and she was quite good. I've seen a lot of movies with sighted people playing the blind and BDH did a passable job of making herself seem visually impaired - unlike many before her.

I just like Joaquin Phoenix. I think he is underrated and under appreciated, often falling into the shadow of what his brother could have been.

Adrien Brody - who is either take it or leave it for me - was quite entertaining in this film. However - I'm not certain he was intended to be quite as funny as I found most of his scenes to be.

Yet another instance where I am reminded how stunning Sigourney Weaver remains to this day. Would that we all could age with such grace.

The Bad:
It is a Shyamalan film, and thus horribly predictable - though he touts himself as being UNpredictable.

The quaint little village people just got on your nerves most of the time.

I felt like the woods were supposed to be a character unto themselves, but they just weren't fleshed out enough to be convincing or as menacing as they needed to be. Much more like the woods nearby a childhood home that you always gave this presence to - but when dared to enter them quickly found that they weren't scary at all.

The "creatures" were campy and staged and seemed like something out of a High School production of Little Red Riding Hood. How anyone could have been sincerely afraid of them and believed they were real for so long is a mystery more so than anything else in the film.

All in all:
Not being a Shyamalan fan - I tend to rank his movies in order of least to most tolerable rather than in line with other cinema. This one goes solidly in the middle with Unbreakable being the worst and Lady in the Water being the best (mostly because it strays from the formulaic repetition of his other films).

Not a horrible movie - but not all that good either.

Lady in the Water

The Good:
It was a very good fairy tale.

The story was intriguing and kept you guessing throughout the film.

The characters were believable and you just felt for them. You wanted to believe.

Paul Giamatti was wonderful, as was Bryce Dallas Howard.

The Bad:
I dislike M. Night Shyamalan for many reasons, but the main one is that he insists on casting himself in a central role in all his movies. This movie was his worst call thus far. He really should keep himself out of his movies. There are plenty of actors out there who could do just fine.

A lot of the effects were just poorly done.

All in all:
For the most part I tend to avoid Shyamalan flicks like the plague that they are - but this is one case where I would recommend going against that principle. It was a very good film - his role aside.