Can I get my $8 back?

Rating: 1/10 (24 August 2002)

This movie was atrocious. Mel Gibson is a fine actor, and so is Phoenix, but they are not enough to carry this pathetic attempt at a thriller. Right from the get-go, NOTHING happens. Let's see, ONE crop circle appears in his field, they fork a dog, and then sit around the tv and tell each other what is happening. They do not show us these "startling images" on the TV except for once, and that one time the footage looks like that old stock footage of Bigfoot running through the woods. The child actors are horrible as well. The little girl looks like the Bride of Chucky, and her voice has no inflection at all. Of course, that could be said for all the characters, except for the aforementioned Phoenix and Gibson. And we also see an alien foot and hand, and that is it until the very end, and when we do see the alien finally, it is like they stuck a green beer bottle in front of the camera. You can't make out many details, and the screen is pretty blurry and obscured. The theme is non-existent. Gibson gives up being a preacher because his wife gets killed. So now aliens showing up out of the blue (and then disappearing with nary an explanation) is going to make him find his faith again? The wispy threads of a plot fail to come together in any cohesive pattern. I think there are two lines in the film that sum up my thoughts. The first is Mel Gibson saying, "You're wasting your time!" I couldn't agree more. And the second is Phoenix stating, "This is just like War of the Worlds." Perhaps, but WotW was a good movie.