We're in the money -- This movie's cruddy....

Rating: 1/10 (14 August 2002)

We're in the money -- This movie's cruddy....
That's just one way to describe this magnificent manure pile from M. Night Shyamalan. Clearly, this guy should have NEVER quit his day job.
The story develops (what little there is) exceedingly slow. After 10 minutes I was shouting, come on get on with it, why are you dragging the inevitable out. The slow thin plot development, would last another 30 minutes.
The almost contact lens depth of character did NOT add to the overall effect of this film either. "THIN" is the keyword to this movie. Thin plot, thin shallow characters, thin dialogue...It all lead up to a very predictable movie experience.
There were scenes in this movie that look like that might have been taken from the George Romero Classic, "Night of the Living Dead!" -- Only "Night of the Living Dead" -- did have a plot to it! This thinly wired reconstruction, could only hope to aspire to such acclaim.
The alien (note SINGULAR) in this movie looked like something out of "Godzilla" or "Creature from the Black Lagoon." In other words, "a guy in a rubber suit!"
I thought this movie trivial and banal at best. Mel Gibson is a fantastic character actor, BUT NOT IN THIS MOVIE. This movie basically would sux the chrome off a trailer hitch. I was surprised Mel would agree to film such a bedraggled piece of crap. It can only mean one thing: They paid him well for his less the spectacular performance. Every actor has his high's and low's, and this certainly was not his best performance. Of course with "contact lens" character development, you can't expect much.
The "ending" did NOT resolve the conflict of "are the aliens going to invade, and are they friendly" question. It ended quite abruptly, with no real ending at all. Like I said the director, M. Night Shyamalan should NOT have quit is day job.
Don't waste your money on this, its a piece of work from the get go.

Rated 1 reel out of 5.
Wayno