Irritated

Rating: Null/10 (13 January 2003)

I liked the suspense this movie created, however it lead to a disappointing climax and fell short of my expectations of the director. There were too many plot holes to list, but I will try.
***SPOILERS***
First of all, this movie was incredibly slow for what little the ending provided as far as relief from the buildup it caused. I could have handled it if it hadn't have had such a disappointing and pointless ending.

Bo apparently has dreams of what is going to happen in the future, yet nobody seems to address this (except for her brother, who mentions it once). She stated several time that she had a dream that all of this was going to happen but it was all largely ignored. She said there was a monster outside her room, could she have a glass of water. The dad takes her back into her room, but doesn't even bring up the monster.
The dog thing wasn't followed up on very much. One of the dogs freaks out and pees on the floor, then off camera apparently attacks Bo and the kid stabs him in the neck with a fork. Where did he get the fork? The dog thing was brought up in what it seemed as "for the moment" storytelling in order to explain what was about to happen, but there was no explanation *why*. This also happens with the crops. Later in the movie they mention that it *was* for locating areas.
The issue with the preacher's wife was too drawn out, with him having partial dreams about what happened to her. As someone else here pointed out, it is ridiculous to imply that the wife died when she did in order to give her brother in-law a hint on how to hurt the alien, and Hello, I don't know about anyone else, but if I am standing in a room up against a hostile creature, alien or human, and I have a bat, you better believe I am going to use it, without having to remember some cryptic message from a dying family member 6 months before.
The son is just plain weird. One minute he is fine, and then the next he is telling his father he hates him for letting his mother die. What? At this point of the movie, we don't know how his mother died, so I think this was lost on me.
The kid borrows a book from the store about alien invasion and as they are looking through it, happen upon a page with a picture of a house being set on fire by rays from a UFO, then panning out to the yard where there is an adult and 2 children dead on the ground. The preacher says "Hey that looks like our house." Even that early in the game, I would have packed my stuff and gone to the lake. Had he have asked his daughter, she probably would have said something like "I had a dream about this" and they could have avoided the whole thing altogether.
What happened to the sheriff?
When the family comes up from the basement, they turn on the TV to hear reports of the aliens leaving, having been defeated "by primitive means" by some of the humans in other countries. Then they say they have no further information. Now. If someone figures out how to make the aliens leave, why wouldn't they broadcast that information everywhere? They send out emergency alerts telling people what to do in case of an emergency. Apparently the news stations in this movie wanted people to figure it out for themselves.
Why is it that only one character in the movie, and seemingly the world, had the inclination to go towards water? He shared his theory with the preacher who decided to stay in his home, and board up the windows and doors, sentencing his family to certain death, and KNOWING it. He saw the picture of his burning house, his dogs were acting vicious, he knew the aliens were hostile because one tried to grab him while it was locked in a pantry. He had to chop that ones fingers off so he could get away.
When in the basement, they realize that the aliens aren't really trying to get in through that door, they are just trying to distract everyone so they could come in through the coal chute. Once the director delivers a healthy scare to the viewers, showing an alien hand coming out of the coal chute about the grab the boy, the aliens grow quiet. Completely. Why did the family spend more time in the basement while Morgan was having an asthma attack? Why didn't they turn on the baby monitor right away to see if they could detect any activity in the main house?
Why didn't anyone check the water for contamination? If this girl was so neurotic that she would complain about the water since she was little, why was dad asking so many questions and acting so confused about the water glasses being all over. They gave the impression at the beginning of the movie that this was strange behavior for the girl so I was really surprised to hear that it was common. It would have worked had someone realized that Bo was predicting the future, because to the aliens, the water was contaminated, however, once again, nobody even said anything. They just happened upon it by accident and paid no attention to the countless times that the preacher got a strange look on his face when he saw all the glasses all over the place.
What was Ray's job in this film? He obviously wasn't known well by the family, the son asked if "that is him" when they were in the restaurant. If Ray had just killed Morgan's mother 6 months ago, wouldn't the kid know him? And let's say he didn't know him. How did the preacher know it was Ray calling him. There were other people in the town and he obviously didn't have caller ID. It could have been anyone saying "father" and then hanging up. Had they have gone into this a bit more, it could have worked, but this guy was obviously not a close family friend. Oh, and even in rural areas they have *69. They even have it for rotary phones.
The preacher who lost his way thing was really well done in "From dusk till dawn" It was completely pointless in this movie. So the guy lost his faith, big deal. He still loved his family and it really had no effect on how he dealt with protecting them. He gets his faith back because he realized Morgan's lungs were closed when the alien sprayed poison gas in his face? (Again, it had just been discovered that the aliens had poison gas, and nothing further was mentioned).
There were too many fly-by-night explanations and not enough curiosity by the cast. Even the sheriff acted like she had an idea what was going on, but she seemed more intent at hinting around instead of just coming out and saying something (before disappearing). I expect way more from Shamalan. I think that just like in "unbreakable", he is still expecting to fly by the notoriety that came with The Sixth Sense and proved, instead, to be a big disappointment.

The only thing good about this movie is the comedy shared by Mel Gibson and Juaquin Phoenix. Juaquin was hilarious and I loved the jokes he made. I usually don't like the movies that he is in. Funny, I hated this movie, but I loved him in it.
3/10***