It's great. Mix 'War of the Worlds' w/ 'Field of Dreams'

Rating: 7/10 (3 August 2002)

...And you got it, pretty much.
Spoilers below!!!!!
As always, Shymalion leaves us with a heartfelt, longish, detailed, intelligent flick, heavy on the spiritual underpinnings. I really enjoyed the 'Small farmer caught up in an Alien Invasion' angle, the pastoral slant added something to this whole thing.
Mel Gibson as always was his convincing self, playing a character in his craggy believable way. I kinda wonder if he was under-written some, certainly the guy in 'Soldier's Story' had more to say about the world around him than Father Graham. Oh well.
Joaquin Phoenix-very good. Grabs the 'Wonderboy bat'(from the Natural) inside the Spiritual Cornfield(from Field of Dreams) and takes out the Alien Boogler(who looks like the Creature from the Black Lagoon) towards the end. Gibson and him as brothers-well, okay, the age gap is a leap.....
Loved the kids' performances, Caulkins are prodigies under 12 and the little girl, dead on. Touches such as the little tinfoil hats, the half-full water glasses, you just can't get better than that.
It was interesting to see the coverage of the Aliens landing, compare it to say 'ID4' or 'Men in Black'. Somewhat sensational but not over-done.

I kept on thinking of 'Twilight Zone' and 'X-files', though this does have an element of 'Scooby Doo' too-locked closets, monsters in darkened halls, the beast in the corn lurking round. All nicely done.
Symalion is big, big big on atmosphere, tone, mood. Here it's milked rather nicely.
I thought his cameo wasn't bad either, his acting is so-so, but hey, it does work.
By all means, do catch this, the audience I saw it with was really into it.
*** outta ****