A crisis of faith and an alien invasion

Rating: 7/10 (16 November 2015)

Protagonist Graham Hess is a former priest who lost is faith after the death of his wife; he lives in rural Pennsylvania with his brother Merrill and children Morgan and Bo. Strange things start to happen straight away; overnight a series of giant crop circles appear in his corn field and his dog suddenly becomes violent. At first he assumes the crop circles were the work of local youths but soon the TV reports that similar patterns are appearing all over the planet. It isn't long before everybody becomes certain that they are a precursor to the appearance of aliens; the question is will they be friendly or will they have sinister intentions.
While this isn't writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's best film it is still entertaining. Early on there is a good sense of mystery as we wonder what is the cause of the strange events and even when the TV reports that aliens are definitely behind them it is possible to wonder how reliable these reports will be at least to anybody looking out for Shyamalan's inevitable twist. There are plenty of other things to wonder about; why does the young girl Bo leave glasses of water around the house and do Graham's wife's enigmatic last words have any real meaning to mention just a couple. While the film isn't really scary there are plenty of tense moments as well as some pretty funny ones. The cast does a decent job and it was nice to have child characters that weren't overly precocious. Some people will have a problem with the ending but I think if it is possible to accept a plot involving invading aliens it shouldn't be impossible to accept a resolution with a religious dimension. It was interesting to see an alien invasion film from the perspective of a small family group that decides to batten down the hatches at home rather than following those involved in fighting the aliens or a family caught up in a mass exodus fleeing the aliens; this gives the film a more intimate feel as for the most part it concentrates on just four characters. Overall I'd recommend this to any fans of Shyamalan's other films.