Signs (2002) (1 Viewer)

[Chuck C]

I'm with you on that one, Sam. I also agree that the actor's did a superb job. Bo was great, and Rory Culkin echoed his older brother's talents. I was expecting Merrill to come out of the basement and say "Have we won the battle?"
Patrick...no worries, I still look foward to seeing Unbreakable.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Edwin, Unbreakable is a friggin' masterpiece compared to Signs.
But have no fear, Seth liked it, so a Signs discussion is sure to roll on until I get bored pounding on Signs' lack of subtlety and internal logic.

 

[Robert_eb]

I saw it yesterday. Though it wasn't as strong as his last two films I enjoyed Signs. It gave me a creepy feeling in some scenes, which I haven't felt during a film in quite some time. I enjoyed the slow pace and wish more filmmakers would employ it. It also made me laugh throughout the film, which is nice to do these days. I would definitely recommend this to someone who liked M. Night Shyamalans first two films.

 

[Vlad D]

Ok, I have mixed feelings about this film. Although I enjoyed it, I walked out a bit disappointed and feeling cheated. But after thinking about it a bit more and discussing it with my wife, I found that I enjoyed it more than I originally thought. The acting was great, the kids in particular.

While I wasn't expecting Independence Day 2, I did expect a bit more on the Alien aspect.

the one scene that stuck with me was the Brazilian camcorder sighting. That just freaked the hell out of me. Shivers were going up and down my spine for a good minute or two after the scene played out...I just couldn't get the image of that creature darting by out of my mind. It was the combination of music, children screaming bloody murder, realistic camera motion, and Joaquin's reaction that got to me. Creepy, creepy stuff.

I also liked that scene, especially Joaquin's reaction. I thought his reaction was very real.

OT: Thank God for home theater! While watching Signs, we had the misfortune of sitting in the same row as a group of teenagers who didn't like the movie and decided it would be ok to make fun of the movie, talk loudly to each other, and talk on cell phones. It didn't matter how many times people told them to shut up, they would just shoot back insults on proceed to talk even louder. Finally they decided to leave. It was awful. I wanted to pound their cell phones down their throats. But I figured I'd probably would wind up in jail, though I'm sure I'd get applause from the rest of the audience. Now, it's only been 20 years since I was that age but I can't imagine ever being that rude, disrespectful and inconsiderate of others. It's experiences like that, that has us going less often to the movies and staying home watching DVD's on our HT. Sorry for the rant.

 

[Seth Paxton]

there was hardly anything intense about that footage at all.

Apparent proof of alien life walking around on Earth???

Yeah, that happens everyday and would in no way involve a massive shift in your paradigm of philosophical thought on life, death, god, and the universe.

It's freaking contact, no longer funky lights or crop circles, but apparent real alien life. My reaction would have been 100% the same a Phoenix's. That is disturbing footage.

If I saw footage of a ghost, alien, etc. that I had very good reason to believe WAS REAL, I would be highly disturbed.

 

[Robert Crawford]

What is the world coming to???????? Seth and I are in agreement about something besides our beloved New York Yankees.
Crawdaddy

 

[Mark Pfeiffer]

howcome nobody here seems to be annoyed by the fact that the big aliens came and went, poisoned a lot of people, but SOMEHOW were defeated...with just some words of dialogue.

Because the movie isn't particularly concerned with how people defeated them or how they figured it out. It's about the impact of a worldwide event on a family, specifically one man.

 

[Seth Paxton]

This film is causing the same effects as it did to its characters.
Patrick and Edwin agree, Crawdaddy and I agree, cats and dogs...
Harmony and faith are restored at the HTF...well, kinda.
BTW, someone asked about the solution in the Middle East. I think actually the implication was that it was a non-technical environment that solved it...didn't they say "tribes" somewhere in the Mid-East? I assumed the water solution was it, though at the time I didn't know it would be water. As I said, I sort of thought that wood gave them some problems for some reason.
And maybe they aren't all that strong. Remember, the whole "hand to hand fighting to take over the world" thing came from the book, which also showed their house on fire. It was implied to be correct info but it really wasn't in the end. No space ship blasted their house and the goal wasn't to take over the world it appears, but just to kidnap a bunch of people.
For all we know they could jump and run and hide, but had little or no fighting skills other than your basic animal. It is only ASSUMED that some powerful force was about to destroy all of Earth, when in fact they very well could have been weaker than us and even known that they were.
As for the girl's dream. I thought it meant she was pyschic and I still think that. She had visions of her brother being "dead", which he was. Actually she says "I don't want you to die" which only implies her FEAR of his death, so she could have simply had a vision of them thinking he was dead.
And I figured the water drinking thing had something to do with her visions. Not that she knew why she was compelled to leave water around the house, but that it was just a good thing to do.
If you believe in the spiritual side of it (which to be honest, I'm an atheist), then there's plenty of reason to think that the mother was somehow bringing visions to the girl.
Anyway, War of the Worlds was a big cop out too, since we are simply told that the cold has killed them off. To me Signs made me think of people in their farm houses listening to War of the Worlds radio broadcast, except that (as in the film) it really is happening.
But War of the Worlds radio show was ALL WORDS, ALL IMPLIED and it seemed to have an okay effect on people at the time. I thought it was nice to see someone go that route again, finally.
Being from Indiana I can easily picture farmers and cornfields isolated from big cities, and wonder how an "invasion" would be for them. Also, as I mentioned, the "cut off in a farm house" aspect worked well for Night of the Living Dead too. Now tell me again, what scenes in that film SHOWED humanity turning back the undead...or was it just implied by some radio reports? What a cop out.

 

[Vlad D]

Apparent proof of alien life walking around on Earth???
Yeah, that happens everyday and would in no way involve a massive shift in your paradigm of philosophical thought on life, death, god, and the universe.

That would shatter most peoples fundamental beliefs. It's not like the Bible mentions little green men (in this case big green men)
Reminds me of an 80's movie called Hanger 18 where, IIRC the aliens had "seeded" the earth thousands of years ago and the government didn't want the information to get out because of the panic that would ensue.

 

[Patrick Sun]

Okay, saw it once more this afternoon (just being a good friend to someone who didn't want to see it alone), more observations:

Bo talks about dreams at least 3 times:

1. "Are you in my dreams" when Graham first find Bo in the cornfields.

2. "Is this a dream?"

3. "I dreamed this."

Is this really just a little child talking, or are we really supposed to infer more from it? I ask because of the cheesy way the aliens are thwarted (water being used to push them away, and Bo has got this OCD with "water's purity") would explain about the child-like way the aliens are handled. Oh course, the more adult themes of finding Graham's faith again might be a bit much for a young child like Bo to extrapolate into a coherent storyline.

Would not a normal person be more inclined to collect those chopped off alien fingers (more proof)? I guess priest have different levels of curiosity.

I would have moved Graham's comforting talks to his children to when they got in the basement to calm their nerves. Doing it while the aliens are "breaking and entering" seems to be a strange time to have that talk.

There are plenty of "laugh at him for being spooked" laughs in this film, but not really too many "oh that scared the crap out of me" scares.

The reveal of the alien in the TV's reflection reminded of when we met Elijah in Unbreakable.

That last reel still reeks for me.

How can an alien that is faster than humans, can jump 10 feet in the air, survive interplanetary travel, not know when it's time to RUUUUNNNNNN!!!!

 

[BrandonM]

The fact that the alien didn't run in the end may have something to do with the fact that it was the alien who Graham had "disfigured." The alien had no way to escape Earth and maybe it figured it would try to exact some revenge before it was killed. Granted it had no way to know that was Graham who had attacked him without some sort of extrasensory power.

 

[Robert Crawford]

It's interesting and quite funny to me that some of this film's biggest critics are some of the strongest HTF supporters of the very mediocre "Spider Man".





Crawdaddy

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

That would shatter most peoples fundamental beliefs. It's not like the Bible mentions little green men (in this case big green men)

Which brings us to another question: Would a non-believer or a doubter bring himself more towards God as a result of an alien invasion?

~Edwin

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

It's interesting and quite funny to me that some of this film's biggest fans are some of the strongest HTF supporters of the very mediocre "AOTC".
~Edwin

 

[Robert Crawford]

Fear has a tendency to gravitate man towards a stronger belief in God.



Crawdaddy

 

[Robert Crawford]

Since I haven't posted any comments about "AOTC", Edwin is ribbing someone besides me.



Crawdaddy

 

[Edwin Pereyra]

Fear has a tendency to gravitate man towards a stronger belief in God.

I agree with you there but your answer still seems a little vague. Let me re-phrase the question:
Would an alien invasion attack have a tendency to gravitate man (a non-believer or a doubter) towards a new found (or better) belief in God, and only because of an alien invasion?
~Edwin

 

[Robert Crawford]

It wasn't just because of an alien invasion. Furthermore, to really get a true measurement of a man's belief in God it's not that simple and it goes much deeper than what is playing out in a particular moment.




Crawdaddy

 

[Mark Palermo]

Unbreakable is also about spiritual aspiration, but it didn't need to directly evoke religion to tell a story about faith. I found this element of Signs to be too blatant and clumsily handled.

There's still some pretty intense stuff in it, and I liked several sequences.

I've heard several people mention a twist ending, though, which I find kind of odd, since the movie seemed pretty straightforward. The only twist was that there was no substantial payoff.

Mark

 

[Paul Case]

Would an alien invasion attack have a tendency to gravitate man (a non-believer or a doubter) towards a new found (or better) belief in God, and only because of an alien invasion?

Is this question supposed to be in reference to Graham's renewal of faith at the end of the film?
If so, it is a flawed question. Graham's renewal of faith in God came about because of all the "signs" he realized were there at the end of the film. He saw that his wife's death had not been in vain, because her final words to him were what inspired him to tell Merill to "swing away" at the alien. He realized that Merill's failure as a baseball player was not in vain because it put him in exactly the place he needed to be at the moment he needed to be there. Merill was the heaviest hitter in the minor leagues, and that talent was exactly what was needed to put that alien down. Graham realized that Bo's habit of leaving half filled water glasses all around the house was not just some random eccentricity as it had seemed before, because in the end those glasses of water were perfectly placed to help his family prevail in their battle with the alien. He saw that his son's potentially fatal asthma attack in the basement was not another unjust act of God against his family, but was, instead, the one thing that saved his son's life when the alien sprayed his gas in the boy's face.
These are the signs that the movie is about in the end, and they are the signs that Graham spoke of to Merill when he was discussing the two groups of people in the world. When Graham saw how everything came together in the end he realized that there was a God, and that everything that he had hated God for had, in the end, actually helped his family to survive. He was not left alone to face whatever horrors the world threw at him, and he never had been. That is what renewed his faith, not the alien attack.
Of course, you may very well be aware of all of that, in which case you can just ignore my post. I'm just attempting to answer your question, if it was in fact refering to Graham's renewal of faith after the alien invasion was over.
Oh, and as you might be able to tell, I love this movie!