On the contrary, the drama and development was done almost entirely in dialog. And the writing of the dialog, and the delivery by the actors, was electric. Even small exchanges often hit the viewer with great force and explained far more than the number of words would indicate. With lesser actors, the dialog wouldn't have worked as effectively, and the whole story would have been strongly diminished.
4) In 2004, no way this place stays secret.
Why not? William Hurt's character *owned* the nature preserve. And the "warden" or whatever he was was clearly "in" on the secret, and part of his job was keeping people away. There was even a comment about paying off politicians to keep planes from flying over it. And who was even *looking* for the village, anyway? They just bought the land (or Walker's father had, he was a philanthropist), and then set it up to be left the hell alone as a "nature preserve" -- no visitors, no trespassing, no hunting, and walled in, with a caretaker whose job it was to keep people out.
6) Why would you, ever, send a blind girl off on an adventure in the woods, with poor directions, to a place she knows nothing about and can't possibly understand. What is a "town" to her anyway?
a) She volunteered to go and wasn't going to let anyone stop her. b) there was even dialog to point out that if any of the young ones had to go, the fact that Ivy was blind was a plus -- she wouldn't see anything that would ruin the illusion or that she could report back to the others. And she was *supposed* two have the two boys as guides, they weren't intending to send a blind woman alone. Then they were to stay back on the road, while Ivy went over the wall to get the medicine, then they were lead her back. Unfortunately, it didn't work out that way, the boys were too scared and left her alone.
7) What happened to the two wimps who left her alone in the woods?
They went back to the village. That was made quite clear.
9) Where did all the kids in the Village come from? Way too many for the small number of adults there.
I strongly disagree. They had been there for 25 years at least, maybe 30. The car in the old photo was a 1970's model, and several of the "young" characters were well into their 20's, pushing 30. The original founders would have had no birth control pills (and like old-time farm families, children would be a useful labor pool for chores). Each couple having 5-10 children would not be out of the question. Plus there was time for the earlier children to be old enough to get married and have their *own* children. There were three generations there, at least.
That is, ok, they decided to make the color red "bad," much like some religions think dancing or the number 7 is bad or some other arbitrary thing,
It's not arbitrary. Red is the color of blood. They wanted a taboo against violence and bloodshed. They wanted the children to think that if they spilled blood, the monsters could come and take them away for it.
and the lesson would be that hey, "red ain't so bad, see, we live fine with red in our lives."
Huh?
But no, not this movie. This movie gave us nothing intelligent or even much to think about-- and what kills me is that is should have!
I found it full of brilliant touches. Hours after I saw it, I kept realizing new things which the film provided clues to, but didn't bother spelling out, since it presumed the audience would be smart enough to connect the dots.
This is a film that richly rewards paying close attention, because almost every little exchange has significance. If you miss some, you'll lose parts of the story and the backstory, and it presumes that the viewer doesn't have to be spoonfed information and can figure it out for themselves. From the sorts of things you missed, I get the impression you weren't paying close enough attention while you were watching it.
I'm glad you made the point about the color red because I was going to say that until I read your post.
A good rebuttal w/ some excellent points. Paved Paradise, please take note. The movie and some of the comments posted here have had me thinking about those details also. For me, however, those things were not enough to salvage the way MNS warped the movie to get his twist at the end.