They're Here -- Yet Again

Rating: Null/10 (12 July 2003)

I expected this to be one of those special f/x schlock fests with people running around, screaming hysterically, amidst dazzling fireworks, but it wasn't that at all. Instead, everything began quietly, deliberately, ominously. The eponymous signs are crop circles, the first signals that something is up world-wide. Not too promising a beginning, since the circles were debunked years ago. But the nicely evoked rural atmosphere of Bucks County, Pennsylvania, was charming in the same way that rural Iowa was charming in "Field of Dreams." (Bucks County is now being devoured from the north by Allentown and engulfed from the south by Philadelphia and will shortly resemble every other mall-blighted area in the country.) And, then, too, I was kind of impressed by the overall tone imposed on the flick by its director. Everyone speaks slowly and quietly, often actually whispering, although there is no reason to whisper. It looked as if it might be an unorthodox, thoughtful look at the nature of the universe, or at least our perceptions of it.
Then, alas, the blocks began to fall into place and what we have instead is a kind of Steven King horror story skeleton fleshed out with techniques derived from the X Files. Mel Gibson, in a decent performance, is a clergyman who has lost his faith after his wife's death and turned to farming. I hoped against hope he wouldn't recover his belief in God after undergoing some additional crisis. Phoenix is his failed baseball-player brother who doesn't have much to do except help out around the house, doing such chores as whacking aliens with his baseball bat and accidentally smashing the only light bulb in the cellar when they need it most. The two kids, however, are engagingly underplayed and the little girl is given some funny lines. (Although nobody laughs, or even grins at any time in the movie.) Gibson too has a comic moment when the family votes on whether to leave the house or stay and hole up there. When he is outvoted, he abruptly claims to have "two votes" because he represents two parents. The boy gets angrily to his feet and says, "That's bull****." Well -- it's funny in the context of this rather grim flick anyway.
The plot has just about every cliche you can think of. Does the reverend regain his faith? Actually, it's not clear whether he does or not. Are there awed newscasters on TV reporting crop circles and lights in the sky from all around the world, saying things like, "God help us all"? Is there a sick kid who, in order to survive, must have medicine that has been left behind in a place of danger and must be retrieved? Is the family trapped in the cellar, as in "Night of the Living Dead"? Do they spend half the movie fumbling around in the dark with only two flashlights between them, as in The X Files? Is the house hastily boarded up with planks nailed over the windows and doors, as in "The Birds"? Do the aliens try to creep into the house through neglected openings such as a coal shoot, as in "Close Encounters of the Third Kind"? Are they finally defeated by something found all around us in everyday life, like harmless bacteria ("The War of the Worlds") or water ("The Day of the Triffids," "The Wizard of Oz")? The answers are yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, and yes.
Still, I admire the attempt on the part of the people responsible for this flick, the director in particular, to breathe some life into these moribund elements of the plot. At least they tried.