An Alien Invasion

Rating: Null/10 (21 September 2006)

Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) has made an astounding discovery: giant crop circles have mysteriously appeared in his cornfields overnight, and all the evidence suggests that they are extra-terrestrial or aliens in nature. Without warning, these unexplainable signs begin to pop up all over the globe, and the entire human race is suddenly faced with a unique event: aliens from another world may be coming, and no one knows their intentions. Hess is an ex-reverend who experiences a huge crisis of faith after the horrific and untimely death of his wife. Living with Hess are three members of his broken family: his younger brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), a failed baseball player who lacks of discipline kept him out of the major league; his son Morgan (Rory Culkin), a young boy afflicted with health problems; and his daughter Bo (Abigail Breslin), a little girl who is curiously paranoid. When Hess and his kin are confronted with the threat of an alien invasion, the failures and heartbreak of the family come to the surface in a volatile mixture of blame, guilt, and anger.
Questions of faith,belief, and hope are all raised and explored in what is a thrillingly terrifying and satisfying film. This movie is about aliens, and it's intense, scary, and all the other great things you may expect out of this type of film. Nevertheless, it's also about faith and family. It's about finding meaning and hope whatever we might face in life.
Director M. Night Shyamalan does the unthinkable, and we can never expect a conventional film out of him. In any film he directs he tends to pull the twist and turn technique. Either you like his movie or you do not. That right there should tell you that he is by far out of the ordinary when it comes to directing a movie. You can predict all you want through his films, but it will never come out the way you thought it would.