What a mess

Rating: Null/10 (5 August 2002)

I had such high hopes for this film when I saw the trailer, and they were dashed to smithereens when I saw this film.
The basic premise in the first few minutes of the film is that Mel Gibson plays an ex-priest, who lives with his son and daughter, and his brother. His wife has died in a car accident. A crop circle appears in his field, and then mysterious things start.
**SPOILERS**
It's difficult to relate how bad this film was without spoilers unfortunately. There were some nice moments in this film, but collectively it was just a huge mess, borrowing from so many other films.
The overall premise was great. Aliens invade earth, albeit slowly. First we get crop circles. Then we get lights above cities. This increases until "the invasion". Meanwhile Mel Gibson's son becomes an expert in UFO's from a book he buys at the local shop.
The direction/characterisation of the children was pretty awful. They just seemed to be perpetually miserable.
For some unexplained reason the guy who killed Mel Gibson's wife in the car accident has locked an alien in his pantry, and Mel accidentally cuts some of the aliens fingers off.
Some of the nice moments include the foil hats that the children make so that the aliens cannot read their minds. Other nice moments include the scenes on telly.
But ultimately it's the family and their direction that needs to carry the film off and it just fails. Also the sub-plot of Mel trying to grapple with his faith just falls flat, and is generally unpleasant. Mel's wife is cut in half by a car and pinned against a tree, but she lives long enough for a cop to drive to Mel's house and back again so that he can have a conversation with her!?
Also why does the daughter leave glasses of water everywhere? No reason, but by strange coincidence, and another stupid sub-plot involving baseball, this kills the remaining alien that Mel hurt earlier. This is kinda passed off as some wonderful miracle/coincidence thing, but for what ultimate reason?
And then to cap it all (1) the aliens leave for no reason and (2) and Mel gains his faith again because his son survives after being attacked by an alien!
What a mess.