Creepy, but way too coincidence-based--and with a hidden agenda

Rating: 5/10 (2 March 2003)

SPOILERS
First of all, Shyamalan shows that he still knows how to set up and shoot skin-crawlingly creepy set pieces. The best ones are reminiscent of early John Carpenter, and that's pretty good. The script borrows liberally from H. P. Lovecraft, 'Night of the Living Dead,' 'The Exorcist,' and '50s-era alien paranoia movies, but you could have worse inspiration than that. The performances are uniformly fine, and if you don't think about it too much, you might enjoy the movie purely for its harmonious aesthetic elements--its assured camera-work, stylish art direction, wry script, etc.
Unfortunately, if you do give the movie more than 30 seconds' thought after the credits roll, it'll pretty much fall apart. The ending, not unlike that of 'Unbreakable,' depends on the audience swallowing some truly ludicrous coincidences, and leaves us with about seventeen unanswered questions. What did the aliens want in the first place? Why do they leave so suddenly? Where do they go? If they can be destroyed by water, why on earth do they want to invade a planet where it falls from the sky every half hour? Did Joaquin Phoenix really require such an involved backstory just to set up his beating the crap out of the alien with a baseball bat? And how the hell did Mel Gibson's dying wife know about it all?
Well, that's the big question, of course. At one point, Gibson's fallen preacher tells his brother that there's no such thing as coincidence, and, yes, Virginia, there really is a cornball, miracles-are-REAL! message hidden none-too-subtly here. Well, I hate to break this to Mr. Shyamalan, but 'Miracles are REAL!' is a very convenient, very lazy way to rationalize away all those coincidences, and inserting a pretentious speech about coincidence-vs.-divine-design doesn't change that fact; no sir, not one bit.
In the end, your enjoyment of this film will depend on how much you're willing to suspend disbelief, and how well you stomach the idea that God would use an alien invasion as a tool to restore one preacher's faith. Doesn't make a whole lot of sense to me. 5.5 out of 10.