Mostly dreadful, with some redeeming features

Rating: 3/10 (25 February 2005)

This film could have been so, so much better. Its greatest weak points are 1) the overly religious theme and the complete pap that links coincidence, fate and religious faith, and 2) completely stupid and illogical storyline regarding the Aliens attack of the earth.
The cinematography is good, but nothing special. Mel Gibson's acting is laboured. Joaquin Phoenix is better, and has real talent, but is wasted in this. The dialogue is cringe-worthy in many over the top sentimental scenes between Gibson and his kids.
The best thing about this movie is the genuine build up of tension for the 1st hour or so. Like some of the best monster/alien movies, the creature(s) are only revealed a tiny bit at a time  and old (but good) tricks are used to keep the suspense high. Up until this point I was quite enjoying the film, and it 'had me going' a little.
The finishing 30 mins does not do any justice to the build up, and the plot at the end is just silly and lame. I don't really know where to begin .. Well, OK, for starters, it seems absolutely ridiculous to me that an extremely advanced race of Aliens (as they must be to build space craft that can travel great distances in space and that can also be rendered invisible to our eyes when they get here) have to
i) create crop circles to navigate the earth ii) cannot work out ways to smash down wooden doors and battened windows of a house.
You would think that had they come millions of miles to 'harvest (????)' humans they would have come prepared with some sort of hi tech guns that paralyse us, or at the very least some suits that make themselves invisible (like their ships) or maybe carry some hi-tech equipment to aid them in their task. But oh no, they wander around our planet surface butt naked thereby enabling us to lock them in wooden pantries! Perhaps if we were told that the Aliens are giving us a sporting chance (a la the Predator alien that hunts Arnie) then we might be willing to suspend disbelief regarding their apparent incompetence in 'harvesting' an inherently inferior race (i.e. us) a little more, but we are not led to believe that they are doing any such thing.
You would also think, that such an advanced race of Aliens would probably work out a way to feed themselves without having to travel round the galaxy looking for beings to 'harvest', assuming that they are 'harvesting' us for food (we are not really told). And if it's meat they want, you'd think they get better value harvesting cows, sheep and pigs, no? In fact, if they'd just have asked us, 'hey we need some food', I'm sure planet earth's leaders would have given them a good supply of meat. But no, they attack us and risk themselves in the process!
Also why, if water is like acid to them, are they wandering around butt naked on a planet that has most of its surface covered in water and whose atmosphere is full of water droplets and vapour??!!? Are we supposed to believe that bulk quantities of water 'melt' the aliens, but they can quite happily breathe our air complete with the high levels of water vapour that is in it?!? And if they don't breathe (we are never really told much about the aliens) then still the high levels of water vapour in our air would surely be a bit of a problem to them, no?
There are just so many stupid inconsistencies in this film, it is almost quite laughable. And it is a shame really, because (as I said initially) the film is genuinely scary and suspenseful in the 1st hour. It's just that when the final credits roll, you think, 'hang-on a minute, that ending was just complete nonsense!!!'
For all the hype M. Night Shyamalan is getting for writing, producing and directing his films, he really should learn a bit of science before trying to write a plot involving science fiction