About faith, the film decides to focus on aliens.

Rating: 2/10 (7 August 2002)

Several reviewers are correct in that this is a film about the personal struggles within a family and specifically the struggle of one man (Gibson) with faith. Gibson's character, once a reverend, has lost his faith following the seemingly pointless and horrid death of his wife in an accident. The plot of the movie is mainly the renewal of Gibson's faith as he discovers his wife's death is not a random and pointless accident, but has a designed purpose behind it. The events that cause this renewal in the character's faith is an alien invasion. Frankly I found the film to be lousy - and not because of the film's focus per se. I did not expect a slam 'em bang 'em flick as Independence Day nor did I expect amazing special effects. Neither of those elements make any film good alone. I did expect a deep story about Gibson's character's faith. As noted above, the idea was there, but it was executed rather badly. Most of the film centers around these signs of the alien invasion - but they are useless to the story other than driving Gibson towards the ultimate rediscovery of his faith in divine purpose. The film therefore is simply a bunch of scenes that are driving to the rather short and unsatisfying ending. Because the ending is so important to the film and you realize that the alien stuff is just backdrop to the whole story, you sit in the theater just waiting for the film to end. It could easily have been a half hour episode of the Twilight Zone rather than the 2 hours (or near) that it is. The backstory of Gibson's loss of faith take up about 15 minutes of screen time if that. The rest of the film is taken up with 'tense' sequences dealing with the characters trying to figure out if the aliens are out there and what they're up to. But we the audience already knows the point of the film has nothing to do with aliens, so who cares? In additon, the tense scenes aren't scary or that tense either. The cinematography of the film was good. Mel Gibson and the actors playing his family did all do a good job with what they had - but very little they had actually added to the theme of faith in the movie. Other scenes and actors gave weak performances. Particularly I remember a scene where the 'uncle' is speaking to an army officer where I wondered why the scene was even taking place (oh yeah, to establish the whole baseball bat thing!) I'm rolling my eyes.
POSSIBLE SPOILER I don't want to reveal too much, but the whole baseball bat idea of 'swing it' was a rather weak way leading to reinspiring faith. It almost seems like Gibson's character is stretching to give meaning to his wife's words so that he can get through the disaster that is at hand at the film's end. Perhaps that is the point, but if it is, nothing more is said or implied to give the film any true meaning.
I liked the Sixth Sense. Unbreakable was okay. This film could have been good if it would have stuck to its main theme of rediscovery of faith. The focus of this film is instead misplaced around the aliens And thereby many theater-goers are understandably surprised when the end FINALLY comes to learn it's supposed to be all about faith. No matter what you go to this film for (faith or aliens) you should be disappointed.