Signs of the Time

Rating: Null/10 (10 August 2002)

Mel Gibson is Graham Hess, a disillusioned priest who abandons his ministry because he has lost faith in God after he suffers a series of misfortunes. First, his cute son Morgan (Rory Culkin, Macaulay's brother) develops asthma. Then his brother Merrill, (Joaquin Phoenix who looks about 30 years younger than Gibson) is forced to give up what was once a promising baseball career after setting a minor league record for strikeouts because he always swung for the fences. To add to his misery, Father Hess is distressed that his adorable, young daughter Bo (Abigail Breslin) has the nasty habit of leaving half-finished glasses of water scattered around the farmhouse. Finally, his wife dies in a traffic accident caused by the local veterinarian Ray Reddy, played by none other than M. Night Shyamalan (pronounced "SHAH-ma-lawn") himself, the Indian-American whom Disney paid $12,500,000 to write, produce, direct and "act" in the movie.
***WARNING: SPOILERS TO FOLLOW*** DO NOT READ IF YOU PLAN TO SEE THE MOVIE.
All of this is more than Father Hess can bear so he decides to change careers and become a full-time corn farmer in rural Pennsylvania. (All of Shyamalan's major movies are filmed in the Philadelphia area where he was raised.) Father's Hess's faith in a wise and loving God is challenged further when he discovers mysterious crop circles in his corn fields. Also, dogs start barking for no apparent reason, a strange phenomenon which Dr. Reddy is not asked to explain. Later, he discovers that these "signs" are appearing in other parts of the world like India, of course. To make matters even more frightening, unexplained lights appear in the skies in many areas but never near water, which will be very important later on.
Yes, as we soon discover, the Earth has been invaded by ET like creatures from outer space. One of these aliens invades the farmhouse where the Hess household resides so the entire family takes shelter in the cellar. Naturally, a battle soon begins. The alien grabs young Morgan who's glad he's not home alone. Father Hess, who has developed a sixth sense for danger, suddenly remembers his wife's dying words, "Swing Away", so he instructs Merrill to grab the baseball bat given to him as a memento for hitting a very long home run. Before Merrill grabs the bat, the alien sprays a poisonous gas into the face of Morgan, the son afflicted with asthma. Merrill swings the bat as hard as possible giving the alien a good 'ol country whippin' but the fight continues until he accidentally knocks over several of Bo's half-empty glasses of water which fall on the alien, burning his/her skin and ending the battle. Apparently, water to the aliens is like kryptonite to Superman and the discovery by earthlings of this weakness insures their defeat.
Miraculously, Morgan is OK because his breathing disorder prevented him from inhaling the poison. Even more miraculously, the high humidity of the Pennsylvania summer and the rain storms in that area did nothing to harm the aliens nor did the monsoon season in India which makes me wonder why the hydrophobic aliens didn't select a drier location like North Africa. Also, if "water on the brain" is so deadly to the aliens, why did they decide to invade the Earth, a planet in which water covers 70% of the surface?
In any case, the aliens abandon the Earth taking hostages with them but, unfortunately, do not include Mr. Shyamalan who created all of this nonsense. Apparently, the aliens never recognized that their captives would need water to survive. This lack of alien intelligence is the weak point in so many invasion films. How can invaders, on one hand, be smart enough to achieve intergalactic travel and, on the other hand, be so stupid when they finally arrive?
In the final scene of the corny, soggy, comic book plot, a triumphant Father Hess prepares to perform a church service. His faith in The Almighty has been restored and is now unbreakable. He is wide awake now and finally realizes that all the mishaps, tragedies and strange quirks of the past were part of God's plan to protect his family from an alien abduction. Father Hess will never pray with anger again.