This was the first M. Night Shyamalan that I didn't jive with after digging his first three movies. I hated the twist and the whole thing just felt flat and staged. And that was on my first watch back in '04. Since then I've read a bunch of positive reviews by my fellow Letterboxders prompting me to revisit this and -- it still felt flat and staged (I just rolled with the twist).

The actual "village" looks like a modern day colonial-style resort. The watch towers look like they're made out of composite planks and they don't even try to make the lamps look non-electric.

The cast for this is stacked and they all pretty much mumble through their lines. While that's fairly expected for a Shyamalan flick -- none of his characters have any spark or life, James McAvoy in Split the exception. Bruce Willis and Mel Gibson's respective character from The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, and Signs acted like robots but it kind of fit their dreary characters.

And I didn't get any feeling of chemistry between Bryce Dallas-Howard and Joaquin Phillips (edit: Joaquin Phoenix!). That maybe on me -- I may be to old and jaded to appreciate a good romance. But without that dramatic heft, it really makes this whole endeavor feel ponderous.