Signs-spoilers! Go away if you don't want to be spoiled.

Okay Gary, the video footage of the monster in Brazil-totally spooky! But very funny at the same time. At first all you could see were these little kids having a cow! I literally wanted to push them aside. In my head I was screaming, "get the **** out of the way!" and wham! JP says the exact same thing (no f word though ). I was cracking up! Then that bloody green thing walked across the screen.***shiver, shiver, shiver*** I promptly jumped out of my skin. After they did the replay, I thought, that looks like big foot! The thing only took a couple of steps, but the gait and the way it's arms were moving, just looked like the big foot film.

 

Hey Lisa... wha.. What is that standing on the roof across the way out your window?

 

You are so not funny!

 

No really, you might wanna take another look...

 

Yeah, I agree totally. That footage was PERFECT. I think everyone wanted those damn kids out of the way

I'm sorry, but the creepiest part for me was the coal shute in the basement.

Did you hear that they made 37 different versions of the trailer before they released it? That boggles the mind...

I got to tell you I seriously expected a MAJOR twist at the end of this movie. Considering that Graham had lost his wife and his faith, I was almost convinved that the "invasion" wasn't an invasion at all, but the second coming or something and it was his wife's spirit that was creeping them all out... I guess thats what I get for liking the Sixth Sense so much...

Oh, did anyone else think the Baby monitor stuff was great? I found it cool that all the alien transmissions were RIGHT THERE in that frequency, but no one would ever think to look in that range. Instead all the experts would be looking at broadcast frequencies and regular radio. All the while the aliens are chatting away...

My Faults with the film -

The big revelation of all the bits at the end. I'm a smart boy. I could have figured it out with the simple pan across the room. The "keep swinging" stuff was kinda forced. There could have been a better way to intergrate that into the film. I'd compare this movies ending with the ending of Contact. If you have seen Contact there is a little scene at the end where she is sitting on the ground by her car and she picks up the dirt. When the dirt falls away, some of the sand catches the light and creates a pattern. I find it amazing that almost no one realizes this is the same pattern from her "visit" through the wormhole transgate. It was a sign of where to look for the next message - a constellation. In Contact there were no flashbacks to her visit, you had to make the connection on your own (12 Monkeys and Total Recall had the same style ending). I was disappointed to see them take the easy way out for Signs...

M-Knight's Cameo. I too thought about the India/Crop Circles connection when I first saw him walking around. Unbreakable had him in the film as a secondary character and it worked, this role was too important for him to take on, it only caused distraction.

Reference to the Small Arab villages. Again, it didn't seem necessary. Simply saying that the tide was turned would have been enough. Just didn't make much sense to me and almost read as a delaying tactic on the part of the screenwriters.

All in all I loved the movie, but it could have been totally awesome with just a few tweaks. This movie had the necessary parts to be a good thinking mans movie, but someone at disney thought it best to dumb it down a little. That really hurts the film IMHO.

 

Ya know Gary, i can't believe i never noticed the sand thing in Contact. But even still i that was a good movie if not a little slow at times.

As much as we pick Signs apart it is still at its core a good movie, but you have a point Gary, it was dumbed down with alot of flash backs of flash backs which is always wrong. One flash back would do it and then we could make the connection later... to bad most people are to lazy when watching a movie to actually think.

 

Now don't this just beat all... after someone railed at me over volunteering to post a non-spoiler review and to NOT post spoilers....

hmm....

 

Act I and act II are quite good film making and storytelling... the finale left me flat. I have read reviews talking about the 'twist' on the end and I keep thinking...what twist would that be? by the end of the movie there was only one plot line that had not been resolved and you could almost count it down...3...2...1...alien from the pantry....hey lookie there!....okay now in the next scene he will be going back to work as a pastor....bingo!... so..where's the twist?
Seems like they just ran out of ideas or script at the end and just wrapped it all up in a neat little package. Give him credit though..in this day of high tech special effects it takes a lot of guts to make an alian invasion movie without the aliens for most of the movie. Reminded me alot of the Alien before it became an action movie franshise.

Overall 2.5 stars with a major mark down for the let down wrap it all up and feel good about ourselves ending. Of course what I have seen was a rough cut.. perhaps there was a different alltogether twisty ending in the actual release cut....

 

Ed if all you saw at the end was lots of water glasses and an asthmatic kid, and him a pastor again, the movie didn't change

 

Ed, it sounds like you have seen the same ending we did (do you have an extra copy of the rough cut?). I knew he would find his faith again. A let down yes, but like I said, I saw that much coming so it wasn't that big of a deal.

Of course it was the alien from the pantry, but did you realize why it was him specifically? He was wounded... I didn't really catch that subtle point until after we left the theatre...

While MKS tried to play the hints up and spell out the resolution to you, this was not nearly as slick as The Sixth Sense. In TSS you didn't even catch the hints and clues and you NEEDED the revelation flashback at the end to slap you in the head with it all. In Signs I'd half expected a big neon sign superimposed over the clues ala Mark Hamill's cameo in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back... They were not that subtle. Signs cool factor comes from all the oddball tidbits that are in the backgrounds, like the "wounded" twist and Baby monitor concepts...

Better yet, if you go to the Signs website, they actually try and play up earth having crop circles for hundreds of years throughout recorded history, including in Colonial America.. Roanoke Colony anyone?

Like I said, I'll probably have to go see it again.

-Gary

 

Here's a question.. how did he get out of the pantry? And better yet, if they were so fast and good jumpers which me they are strong.. why the hell did the pantry hold him to begin with? (especially since the light under the door looked like sunlight which means window)

 

I was thinking the same thing about that too just seemed to be to easy but that may have been there to show that they had a weakness of that they were hostal(bad spelling)?

 

gary, we have 2 copies of the film. It doesn't have the neat opening at the beginning or all the music. To me which takes away from the film,not as startling.

 

You know, his buddies may have got him out of the Pantry and then when they saw that he was wounded, didn't take him back. I know that would piss me off...

I'm sorry, but if you trapped or found and alien trapped in a closet the first thing I would do would be to call the cops. Stragen that we only saw the sherrif for the first third of the movie, then she disappeared altogether. No one else in the town had Crop Circles. Surely when the more serious news reports started coming in she would have checked on Graham and his clan...

-Gary

 

OR maybe his buddies let him out and a 5 year old with a super soaker chased them off and left him (like the news reports said). So with nothing else to do, he went to their house to get revenge.

 

yea they make a point to focus in on the hand that is missing the fingers that Mel choped off. I did like the camo trick though. That was a slick effect. The aliens were very Whitley Shriberesque as well.

Overall the movie was not something I would go back and watch again and again. I am not yet impressed with Mr. Shyalamalan(sp?)

What's left in the summer season? Only xXx isn't it? Haven;t we gotten everything else? almost time to enter the Fall lull until Christmas season movies...mmm Two Towers....yea...

 

Master of Disguise... (i do wanna see this)
XXX...
Formula 58 (or 59) with Sam L Jackson looked kinda funny too.

 

I think the whole focus on the missing fingers was just to keep us going down "this is all one big coincidence" path. What are the odds of this alien in his living room being the same as the one in the pantry. I didn't think of the fact he was wounded as why he was still hanging around. Good call.

It's not until Graham makes the "swing away" connection that he has his "revelation" that there actually is somebody watching out over them and his wife's death was done ultimately to save his son's life. It brought him and the vet together in such a way that their paths would cross again in this time of need when the vet (I forgot his name) calls Graham.

That's the big "twist". The whole time Graham's one of those non-believers and then everything clicks. Cliche? Yes. Derived and forced? Yes and yes. That's hollywood for you.

 

***is looking forward to seeing xXx***

 

So the Twist is a man who once thought that God watched out for him changes his mind and thinks it is all bunk then discovers...buzz wrong answer God really does watch over you?...hmmm not much of a twist really...perhaps more of a slight tweak end...no...cliche... Anyway i will step out of this conversation now as I seem to be the only one not impressed with this film overall and don't want to argue about it Not that anyone is arguing...yet...

Cali, you just wanna watch Vin flex

 

I'm sure it will have some nice action stunts as well to go with the flexing Ed.

 

oh we know you just want the flexing heh

Personally if he can get some decent roles Vin could be the next really big acton star...hehe he;s got to loose the initials though

 

i'm going to be a smartbutt:

Vash, hostal(bad spelling)?

hostal=hostile

and i am now right...later.

 

hehehe Ed, funny, I hadn't thought of that.

 

What's even funnier then that Brat is that you picked up on Otto's (Vash) horrid spelling without any of us saying anything yet. We tease him all the time for it.