A bit of a disappointment

Rating: Null/10 (1 February 2003)

I wanted to see this when it first came out, but couldn't make time for it. Am I glad I didn't spend the money to see it in the theater and instead just lost the $3 in renting it. First the good things. Gibson's interaction with the kids was touching and believable. The pace of the film was good and there were some good suspenseful parts that for most folks will make it worth viewing. And there were NO GUNS and really, except for two scenes no real violence. Sorry to be negative, but let's get to the bad things. First the scene with the alien trapped in the farm house, restrained only by a locked door with a table leaning against it. What? It wasn't capable of overcoming that? This lead to the scene later in the movie where Gibson's character notes the trouble the alien had with the blocked door earlier and reasons they can probably get away with the same thing. What kind of incompetent aliens are these? And Gibson's character just leaves it there? The flashback to Gibson's character's wife's accident was just as silly, why couldn't she had just been near death? Why did they have to have such a complicated scenario, and why did she have to seem as chatty as a valley girl on a sugar buzz at the local mall and not seeming as though she had just been in a terrible accident? I don't know if Gibson will ever or has been in a more pacifist role, acting more like Gandhi in responding to the threat to his family, than Braveheart. But in the movie's defense, he was a former man of the cloth. I was surprised to find the same director did The Sixth Sense, which I really liked. But hey, really good alien flicks are tough to pull off succcessfully.