 Continuing right along with my catch-up on Shyamalan films, I decided to look at one that I was genuinely interested in after hearing mostly good things about it. People often refer to this film as Shyamalan's general resurrection with his previous films being the major bombs of 'The Last Airbender' and 'After Earth' - neither of which I've seen, and neither of which will end up on this review list anytime soon.
It's my opinion that he went back to the solid twist here. Some of his twists end up being these deep and profound things that the audience has to think about long and hard. Probably the worst example of this, to me, being 'Signs'. But the "solid twist" I speak of is something more, well, solid. Not something you have to mull over, but just something cool and interesting like the endings of 'The Sixth Sense' and 'Unbreakable'. This film is done in a found footage style, but it's the cleanest found footage you'll probably ever see. That's kinda one of those "take it or leave it" aspects of the film. It might not bother you, but you know it doesn't look realistic. That said, I know nothing about the cameras used, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Two kids, Becca (Olivia DeJong) and Tyler (Ed Oxenbound) (both of whom were recently in 'Better Watch Out') head on a trip to visit their grandparents who they haven't met yet. This is due to a falling out the grandparents had with the kids' mother when she was still young, but there's strong refusal to talk about what went down, and that's the big "guessing game" portion of the film. Anyway, the kids start noticing that the grandparents are constantly acting very strange, and though everything has it's own explanation, there's still a strong suspicion that maybe their grandparents aren't exactly your average everyday old folks. To their credit, you get to know and like these kids all right. You don't fall in love with them, but you get them and what they're about. Perhaps what's best done here is that you definitely feel their fear when it's necessary, and the found footage aspect really lends itself to what the movie is trying to do. This is easily one of his best titles, in my humble opinion. I have to admit that I thought I knew how this all ended, but I was actually kinda taken aback when it was all said and done. It's not perfect, and actually very simple when all is considered, but to me that's actually refreshing. I was hoping things weren't gonna get deep and confusing again. The ending gives you a nice "holy shit" moment, after spending the whole movie second-guessing yourself. It's almost like a 'Mind Trap' question, where the answer tends to be ridiculously simple, but you end up overthinking. But hey, maybe that's just me and how I felt about it. Truth be told, I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. It's not a favorite, but after Shyamalan recognized that he was drowning, it feels like he came back hard with this title. This makes for a fun haunted house film, often make you uncomfortable as you watch and guess, and plays with your fears quite well. 4/5
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 Here's another title of Shyamalan's that I hadn't seen yet. However, in my defense, this movie was spoiled for me long, long ago. Judging by it's trailer, I just wasn't very interested this time around, after being disappointed by 'Signs'. Long story short, I thought it's ending was too convoluted, and... yeah, the whole aliens vs water and doors thing that made no sense. That said, it did a good job of instilling the fear of the aliens, and this movie was on a similar wavelength, but more about strange creatures as opposed to aliens, ghosts or bad anime adaptations.
To keep it very basic, 'The Village' is about a village, looking 18th or 19th century, but never given a year. that is... well, as you read above, tormented by strange creatures. They kinda "Voldemort" the things by referring to them as "Those we do not speak of". And the rest of it is kind of a love story between Ivy (Bryce Dallas Howard) and Lucius (Juaquin Phoenix), and their differing needs to head beyond the borders of their village in search of medicine. It's one of those movies that unfolds as it goes, so I'm just gonna stick with the bare basics so as not to spoil a movie that's probably been spoiled for most already, anyway. But JUST in case.. This ends up being one of those interesting movies to go back and check out considering it's star-studded cast of relative newcomers, blending with well-known ones. Included are the likes of Sigourney Weaver, Adrien Brody, and William Hurt just to name a few. That said, the movie itself is just... okay... if even that. The twist of this one tends to be famous for being disliked. Some say it's painfully obvious and stupid, some say there's no way it could happen, and some claim this as the "beginning of the end" for Shyamalan (though many would argue 'Signs', it was still better than this) For the most part, I just kinda found this to be a lot of talk and boredom, until it gets near the end. Unfortunately for me, as I said, it was spoiled for me long ago. I can't really imagine how I'd react to this ending if I was blind going in. My best guess would be something along the lines of "neat, but it felt like the easy way out". To me, this was pretty much just bad. It's one I don't feel any need to revisit and search for clues like I did with 'Sixth Sense', or revisit at all for that matter. I'm glad I finally gave it a chance, but it's kind of a throw-away for me. 2/5  This one has actually been on my "to-see" list for quite some time. I mean, it's a heist movie featuring magicians, so it was always this different and cool concept I enjoyed the looks of. A "right up my alley" kinda thing.
The movie opens with four separate magicians, Danny Atlas (Jess Eisenberg), Merrit McKinney (Woody Harrelson), Henly Reeves (Isla Fisher) and Jack Wilder (Dave Franco). They each show off their unique skill sets to the audience, and each receive a mysterious tarot card, calling them to meet at a specific spot. Upon meeting up, they come to realize that they have been lured together in order to team up, and deliver a grand performance one year later in which they "rob a bank" as part of the act. This sets an FBI agent named Dylan Rhodes (Mark Ruffalo), and Interpol agent named Alma Dray (Mélanie Laurent) on their tracks. Also joining the cast is the man funding the Four Horsemen (as they call themselves), Arthur Tressler (Michael Caine) and a fomer magician who now reveals secrets of the trade on his YouTube channel, Thaddeus Bradley (Morgan Freeman). Each of them seem to serve as sort of neutral parties, going at each other, while there's a whole bigger picture to be seen. If I'm honest, the movie managed to confuse me in places. Often times, I found it moved a bit fast or got a bit convoluted with the varying characters to keep track of. It all leads up to a pretty good twist in the end, though, so that likely has a lit to do with the few "what the hell just happened" moments. That likely has a lot to do with it. And even the ending itself is something that'll either blow your mind, or that you predict from the get-go. When all said and done, the twist could feel like a total cop-out to some. Negative aspects aside, however, there's a lot to enjoy about the film as well. The Four Horsemen's stage presence is pretty convincing as professional magicians as opposed to just being the actors playing these guys. I thought the coolest thing in the movie was probably Eisenberg's first magic trick, in which he totally got me. Yes, there is an explaination for it, I'm sure, but it was still really neat to think that a movie would go to those lengths of illusion for its audience. All in all, I have to say I enjoyed it. But its definitely on that long list of movies that I'll need to go back and watch a second time at least. It's the type of movie where you'll no doubt pick up various clues along the way upon re-watching it. 4/5 |
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