Writer-director M. Night Shyamalan painted himself into a corner with The Sixth Sense, and has climbed the walls ever since: Unbreakable, Signs, and now this. His outsized initial success seems to have given him an inflated sense of self-importance, an inflamed sense of mission: not simply to top the sensationalism but simultaneously to deepen the spirituality. All of which, on the plus side, grants him unusual license to take chances, take pains, take time. His films invariably have a great intensity and a grim mood. The flip side, though, is that they tend to be slow, overextended, and overly dependent on the element of surprise. When the final surprise falls short, as almost inevitably it must, the entire film crumbles to nothing. This one, a fable of fear, an allegory of innocence vs. corruption, centers on a community of Amish-like isolation and austerity, surrounded by a dark forest inhabited by "those we don't speak of," and never, on any account, to be entered by the villagers. If "we" don't go into "their" woods, "they" will stay out of "our" valley. There would be no film if the truce could last for the duration. Among the assets, prior to the inevitable crumbling, are some effective sound effects of cracking and rustling in the forest, and atmospheric photography by Roger Deakins, and a creditable acting debut by Bryce Dallas Howard, daughter of Ron Howard, far less affected than such co-stars as Joaquin Phoenix, Adrien Brody, William Hurt -- him especially -- and Sigourney Weaver. But the preferable showcase would have been a Twilight Zone half-hour or at most an Outer Limits hour: brief and ephemeral. That way, no one could "spoil" the surprise beforehand, and everyone who cared to watch it could talk it over in the lunchroom the next day. (2004) — Duncan Shepherd
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