What A Crappity Crap movie

Rating: 3/10 (10 August 2002)

I didn't really like it. It was too preachy and the aliens were moronic. Here are two perfect descriptions:
"Hey, look at that planet. It's 75% poison. Let's land there! Hopefully they won't have doors here."
I've decided that what the aliens did would be roughly equivalent to me and my friends getting together and attacking a planet where the majority of lifeforms subsisted on lava,and were themselves 60% lava. The number one resource on the planet would be, of course, lava. Lava would fall from the sky. Lava would cover a good 75% of the planet.
What a bunch of religious propaganda and a sell-out ending. So, aliens evolved beyond pants? The plot sunk in. Aliens. Defeated due to doorknobs. And wood. They travelled a countless distance to attack a farmhouse. Poorly.
The Simpsons episode where the aliens are defeated with planks of wood with nails in them came to mind.
If this was a "scouting" mission, they probably should have picked up on the whole "75% water" aspect. Namely, what were the directors/aliens thinking? I love how they remind us that they have scouts just so we can make fun of them for invading a planet filled with water, where it also rains water, and water is used daily by all life forms on said planet. Also, after all that talk of having to find a way to beat the aliens back, they seem susceptible to baseball bats, and therefore more susceptible to baseball bats with moist towels on them, or possibly bullets and missles.
Gotta love the fact that they don't know how to open doors either. Poor Gary (which is what I deem to be the name of that alien now), getting locked in a pantry, then missing his army's retreat and running into a room filled with glasses of water and humans. To top that off, he fails at killing an asthmatic, unconcious, child. I love how the only way they can kill you is by sticking their hand in your face (or maybe that was just Gary and his Private Pyle-like antics). Failures, a race of failures. They are very good at shaking and banging on doors though, oh yes!
The ships, oh the ships. Yes, they are invisble in the day, but glow brightly at night. Gooo aliens!
Overall, quite a funny movie. I couldn't help but laugh at some scenes, like the one I described above, with Gary bursting into the room full of humans. The whole theater gasps, and is then interrupted by my maniacal laughter. I demand a comedy/horror sequel where we battle aliens with super soakers and water balloons.
Some things I just don't understand:
1. Aliens are harvesting people. So they send ships to major cities where there are LOTS of people. However, they also send a ship or two or however many to BUMSTEAD, PA to harvest the 8 people who live there? What?
2. Aliens melt when water is on them, yet they're harvesting humans who possess absurd amounts of water in their bodies, can SPIT onto them as a weapon, and live on a planet consisting of 70% water. I don't know, but if I'm a human, and I want to invade a planet, I'm not choosing the one that has huge seas of hydrochloric acid, and who's inhabitants spit, and drip acid out of every pore. Not even if their bones are made from gold.
3. They have the insanely powerful ship technology, but can't seem to get in or out of a wooden pantry that I could easily break through? Sure...I get it...they are so highly evolved that physical exertion is thousands of years back in their evolution. Yet they can run faster than us and jump up onto buildings. Which would explain the poison-gas wrist-thingies, right? I mean...that's logical, that makes sense.
4. A farmer in the middle of PA, who farms corn, doesn't have a single firearm in the house? Or a stash? Even if he is a preacher, I find it absurd. I mean, I read Preacher. Jesse Custer carries shotguns and rifles and pistols frequently, and knows how to use them. Lame.
5. M. Night Shyamalamnammanmnqyana has lost a lot of weight. He looked like your average everyday guy in this one, and in Sixth Sense, he looked all chubby and fat. But he plays a Doctor in one, and a Vet in the other...weird...some bizarre medical fetish, I suppose.
Don't waste your time on this drivle and don't try to convince yourself that he's a genius. he's just playing up to America's post 9-11 "Faith is everything" crap.