An Interesting Combination of Horror Movie And Faith Journey

Rating: 8/10 (16 August 2003)

Much as he did in "The Sixth Sense," producer/director/writer M. Night Shyamalan offers us an appropriately eerie story - about an alien invasion of earth and the effect that it has on the principal character Graham Hess (Mel Gibson.) Gibson plays an ex-priest (I assume Episcopalian since he was married and had children) whose faith had been destroyed when his wife was killed in a car accident. One morning, he discovers crop circles in his field. More than that, he learns on TV that crop circles have been found all over the world. It turns out that aliens use them for navigational purposes, and that they are the prelude to an invasion.
The opening and closing scenes of the story are, in my view, the weakest which hurts an otherwise excellent film. I felt we jumped too quickly into the whole crop circle angle without any real development of the story and without knowing anything about any of the characters. The end left me rather cold, and although it was predictable enough there was really nothing in the story that had suggested it should happen (I noted, for instance, that in the immediately preceding scene Hess had still refused to pray even after his son was saved.) Instead, he focused on the idea that "there are no coincidences." He came to believe in his personal spiritual journey that everything has a reason; everything is part of a plan. Words his wife (Patricia Kalember) had spoken while she was dying (and even, then, her death) had a relevance to the trial the family was undergoing in the present. His faith was shattered by a crisis (his wife's death) and ultimately it's restored by a crisis (the alien invasion.) The spiritual journey is an important motif to this movie, as you can see.
The movie is frightening enough in places, although certainly not the scariest movie I've ever seen. I didn't care for Joaquin Phoenix as Graham's brother Merrill. Something about him didn't work in that role. The kids (Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin) didn't really do anything for me, and there were also some inconsistencies in logic. (Potential spoiler here.) If water was so toxic to these aliens, it's a mystery to me why they would choose to conquer a planet that's covered in the stuff? Sure, they could choose to stay away from lakes and rivers and oceans, but what if it rained? That seemed strange and unexplained to me.
Having mentioned those couple of negatives, though, I can say that I very much enjoyed the movie. I've had mixed reactions to Mel Gibson in the past. Some of his work I've really enjoyed; some I've thought was terrible. This one was near the top of the list as far as I'm concerned.
8/10