The Village
Buena Vista Pictures | Release Date: July 30, 2004 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
44
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
11
Mixed:
19
Negative:
10
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
80
EmpireIan Nathan
Made with such elegance, atmosphere and wonderfully mannered performances it will nestle deep inside your head, refusing to budge. The more you ponder it, the better it becomes. Read full review
75
Philadelphia InquirerCarrie Rickey
A third-generation performer, this daughter of actor-director Ron Howard makes a stunning feature debut. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter Travers
The Village, even when its step falters, is on to something more provocative than seeing dead people. Its power, unrelated to digital monsters, comes from the tension building inside the characters. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeWesley Morris
Spellbinding if ponderous. Read full review
75
ReelViewsJames Berardinelli
For those who like the director's body of work, appreciate "The Twilight Zone," and have a high suspension of disbelief threshold, The Village is likely to satisfy. Read full review
70
New York Magazine (Vulture)Peter Rainer
The Village is a better movie (than Signs) --probably his best since "The Sixth Sense"--but it indulges Shyamalan's penchant for messianic uplift. Read full review
70
The A.V. ClubScott Tobias
The Village may have finally emptied his usual bag of tricks, but considered on its own merits, its skillful fusion of Grimm fairy-tale horror and pointed social parable find Shyamalan in peak form. Read full review
67
Entertainment WeeklyMark Harris
It gives nothing of the plot away to say that there's a fine line between an ''Aha!'' and an ''Oh, brother!'' Whether you feel The Village crosses that line may hinge on whether you think Shyamalan's screenwriting ability is beginning to lag behind his skill as a director. Read full review
63
Chicago TribuneMichael Wilmington
A big, creepy dollhouse of a movie--a sometimes engrossing shocker with a surprise ending that isn't especially shocking or surprising. Read full review
63
USA TodayClaudia Puig
The Village emerges as a victim of its own ambitions. At one point, Edward advises Ivy: "Do your very best not to scream." That doesn't require much restraint on our part. Read full review
63
Baltimore SunChris Kaltenbach
It doesn't take a genius IQ to figure out the movie's final twist far in advance, leaving the attentive viewer to wonder only about how Shyamalan will pull it off and to hope the movie doesn't turn silly. Read full review
60
TimeRichard Corliss
The film's payoff raises more questions than it answers, which may be Shyamalan's intent in this political parable of fear. Read full review
60
The Hollywood ReporterKirk Honeycutt
Unlike "The Sixth Sense," the film's key revelation might be too mild to jolt audiences. Some may even feel cheated. Read full review
60
Dallas ObserverGregory Weinkauf
The result is his (Shyamalan's) most meditative and lovingly rendered offering thus far, if also his least fun. Read full review
58
Seattle Post-IntelligencerPaula Nechak
The Village goes up in smoke (and mirrors). It wants to find a profoundness that hints at something deep and dimensional, but it hasn't the courage of conviction to stay on course as an unabashed ode to innocence. Read full review
58
Portland OregonianKaren Karbo
Thriller is hardly the word for this tedious exercise in clue-hiding. Read full review
50
New York PostLou Lumenick
Pours on creepy atmosphere, but this dud is too intent on delivering its liberal "message" to actually deliver the kinds of scares it promises in the terrific trailer. Read full review
50
New York Daily NewsJack Mathews
The Village is Shyamalan's weakest story, and its ending - whether or not you're surprised by it - is a genuine clinker. Read full review
50
Miami HeraldRene Rodriguez
I will tell you what The Village is not: It is not scary. It is not all that interesting. It isn't even much of a movie. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorDavid Sterritt
Shyamalan remains a stilted screenwriter, but Roger Deakins's cinematography is spooky, creepy, eerie all the way. Read full review
50
VarietyBrian Lowry
A watchable film for awhile that unravels in a muddled last act likely to send many opening-weekend filmgoers home head-scratching and grumbling. Read full review
50
PremiereAaron Hillis
When the secret is finally divulged, it’s such a letdown that it feels unfairly manipulative to have sat through such agonizing tedium. Read full review
50
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Liam Lacey
Not only is The Village not credible, its shallowness makes it dislikable, a shopworn gothic plot focusing on stereotypical characters with disabilities, with no ambitions beyond playing a simple-minded audience head game. Read full review
50
Washington PostStephen Hunter
The Village yields a trick ending quite lame, quite tame and quite old; Rod Serling thought of it 40 years ago and he did it better. Read full review
50
The New YorkerAnthony Lane
Shyamalan remains as coolly unstirred by sex as he was in his previous movies--an astounding indifference, given the historical entwining of eros and fright. Even more bizarre is the gradual draining of humor from his work; the anatomy of horror demands a tongue in the cheek to go with the baring of teeth, but much of The Village is a proud and sullen affair. Read full review
40
L.A. WeeklyElla Taylor
This undeniably talented writer-director has been repeating himself with steadily decreasing potency ever since the wonderful "The Sixth Sense," and his latest excursion does nothing to buck the trend. Read full review
40
The New York TimesDana Stevens
The film's ridiculousness would not be so irksome if Mr. Shyamalan did not take his sleight of hand so seriously, if he did not insist on dressing this scary, silly, moderately clever fairy tale in a somber cloak of allegory. Read full review
40
TV Guide MagazineMaitland McDonagh
The film's gotcha! payoff doesn't justify the gloomy journey. Read full review
40
Film ThreatChad Bixby
Everyone here sounds trapped in a high school staging of “The Crucible,” and after about an hour, this high-toned creature feature wears out its welcome and starts to seem rather boring and pretentious, the two greatest sins any movie can commit. Read full review
40
NewsweekDavid Ansen
The entire solemn, portentous edifice that is The Village collapses of its own fake weight. Just about everything that makes Shyamalan special misfires here. Read full review
30
Washington PostDesson Thomson
For the most part, the film's a bewildering disappointment. Read full review
30
Los Angeles TimesKevin Thomas
It's tedious instead of provocative and so unconvincing as to be preposterous. Read full review
30
Chicago ReaderHank Sartin
Every eerily tranquil shot, weirdly elliptical scene, and peculiar line reading contributes to a mood of detachment rather than creeping dread. Read full review
30
SalonStephanie Zacharek
The real mystery at the heart of M. Night Shyamalan's latest: How does he persuade actors like Sigourney Weaver and Adrien Brody to act in his supremely lame movies? Read full review
30
SlateDavid Edelstein
The photography is excellent! the music is striking! the movie is a stinker! Read full review
30
Village VoiceMichael Atkinson
The screwiest yarn yet from Shyamalan's metaphysical-Limburger career project, a non-horror horror film. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc Savlov
It's exasperating watching so much top-drawer talent wasted in a film that wraps itself up with one of the most preposterous (not to mention obvious) endings the genre has ever seen. Read full review
25
Chicago Sun-TimesRoger Ebert
A colossal miscalculation, a movie based on a premise that cannot support it, a premise so transparent it would be laughable were the movie not so deadly solemn. It's a flimsy excuse for a plot, with characters who move below the one-dimensional and enter Flatland. Read full review
25
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalle
The Village seems poised to become as cheesy in its effects as a low-budget horror film. Shyamalan's gracefulness keeps his movie just out of that abyss. Read full review
20
Wall Street JournalJoe Morgenstern
It's bad enough to make parable a four-letter word.
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