Actually, the spoiler warning is just me being extra cautious. M. Night Shyamalan has made a specialty out of surprise endings, and this is no exception. I swear, I won’t ruin that for anyone, even those who go past the spoiler warning.

Let me get it out of the way.

It turns out that the movie is not actually about what I thought it was.

What seems like the central plot is actually just an interesting situation for telling another story.

There, that shouldn’t mean anything to anyone until after they’ve seen it. I’m hoping that it might head off some dim-witted complaints from people who expected one thing and just can’t deal with getting another; like some pedestrian lout with his mouth all set for canned tuna and getting fresh, lovingly prepared yellowtail and bitching about not getting what he expected. Philistine. I fart at you, stinkyhead naysayer! Stick to Bruckheimer and Bay, if that’s what you like.

I don’t think I’m spoiling anything by mentioning that a movie with crop circles in the commercials and posters has some ET content. It does, but most of it is brief and second-hand, and that’s what I found relevant.

The “End Times”. When the charades are dropped and all those eerie secrets become mainstream. When all those weird little things that could never really be true become the lead on the evening news. When every channel has live coverage of [The Horror! The Horror!] and people have to integrate that stuff into their world view.

Most of the ET screen time is on TV in the film. It’s on every channel, live, and is more riveting than the OJ slow speed chase and Showdown in the Desert at the same time. You know that most of mankind is watching these extraordinary events on the tube, and that is the way the end times will present themselves.

I liked the film, a lot.