Lame, Lame, Lame

Rating: 5/10 (19 April 2005)

I loved The Sixth Sense as much as anyone and Unbreakable is one of my favorite movies (yes, Unbreakable, and I'll defend it to no end) so I was highly disappointed by this one. Let's just say I have a whole bunch of issues with this movie.
1)The entire thing was an overlong second rate version of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds.
2)Those were real birds and they're still terrifying, which is a lot more than I can say for some idiot in a bright green Halloween costume.
3)Why would the aliens, with all their brilliance that enables them to travel galaxies, try to conquer a planet that's 65% covered by the substance that kills them! Some people have tried using the defense that it's holy water, but that doesn't explain why Dr. Reddy thought they were afraid of the lake. This is just a huge plot hole. What's with Shyamalan's water phobia? I thought that was OK as David Dunne's weak point, but why would he use the same thing twice? It didn't make sense here.
4) That whole "swing away" twist. I'm sorry, I have nothing to say about that other than I thought it was COMPLETELY RETARDED!
5)The ending was much too heavy handed. Shayamalan may as well have had God personally come down and tell the aliens "Leave the Hess family alone!"
No one hits a home run every time, and I was willing to overlook this misstep by Night and still be excited about his next film. After seeing The Village, however...