Well, it certainly wasn't the worst movie ever -- I kind of enjoyed a lot of it, actually. It was pretty funny, both intentionally and unintentionally. But every few minutes, something stupid happened that just made me sit up and go, "Boy, that's STUPID. Those people/antagonists/meerkats don't even DESERVE to live." Just lots and lots of stupid things kept happening.

I'd like to discuss this unending stupidity with other folks who have seen the movie. If you haven't seen it, you may want to steer clear of this thread so you, too, can enjoy the stupidity unspoiled.

***spoilers ahead***

Did it ever occur to Shyamalan that if aliens were capable of traversing interstellar space, that they also might have the folowing abilities:

• opening doors
• avoiding water (deadly water???)
• defending themselves

These were the lamest aliens ever. What aliens would come to a planet where 75% of the surface is covered in a substance that's DEADLY to them without at least investing in a good, waterproof poncho?

And the gave up chasing the humans because they hidden behind a wooden door. Use some muscle, aliens! It's just a creaky old door.

If anyone was stupider than the aliens, it was Mel Gibson's family. I thought one of the advantages of living in Nebraska or whatever godforsaken state they were in was that everyone gets a shotgun at birth. Folks, if you're going to lock yourself in a house and wait for aliens, get yourself some guns. At the very least, stock up on some food.

OTHER THINGS THAT SUCKED:

• Shyamalan's cameo. Um, if you're going to put yourself in a pivotal role, learn how to emote.
• I could smell the "Water" weakness coming about five minutes into the movie.
• All the major developments were happening out in the real world. I felt like throttling the cameraman. Just turn the camera on the TV and let me watch CNN as the invasion unfolds.
• Why was a half hour of the movie devoted to comaining that they didn't have enough stuff to board up the windows?

There's so much more, but I'm tiring myself out just thinking about how much he screwed this one up. After two great movies, he's allowed a goof, but Shyamalan needs to learn some lessons from this one before his next outing.

In Response to jon (#1260):

You know, I kind of liked that movie. A lot.

I think Shyamalan was perfect in his role. His "lack of emoting" was esssential to his character, the way I see it. He didn't want to deal with the emotional and psychological effects of his mistake, so he just turned himself off.

Maybe Earth was one of the last planets with life left to conquer. Maybe salt water doesn't affect them. I don't know.

"If anyone was stupider than the aliens, it was Mel Gibson's family. I thought one of the advantages of living in Nebraska or whatever godforsaken state they were in was that everyone gets a shotgun at birth. Folks, if you're going to lock yourself in a house and wait for aliens, get yourself some guns. At the very least, stock up on some food."

They were in Pennsylvania. It said that, like, 20 times. And I don't think they do that sort of thing with guns in Pennsylvania. Besides, guns aren't the most effective way of fighting the aliens...

I liked not seeing the developments on-screen. I felt like that's part of what made this movie different and special.

Then again, I've heard a lot of negative reactions to the movie, saying that it feels too much like a Hitchcock rip-off. Seeing as how I am young and naive, I have never actually seen a Hitchcock movie. And my naivete also might explain why I liked the movie so much.

In Response to kumquat (#1261):

Actually, I know it was Pennsylvania -- Shyamalan films all his movies in and around Philadelphia.

But it's not as much fun to crack on Pennsylvania.

My crap-sense was a tinglin' upon seeing the previews for this dog, and now I've only got more reasons not to see it.

Thanks to your spoilers, I now will be able to discuss with others who have seen the movie and participate in the age-old sport of ripping apart a movie. Yay!

In Response to jon (#1260):

I would like to stomp on the face of anyone who actually liked this movie.

Jon, I have to agree with you on all your points. Aliens not being able to operate doors, and farmers (from whatever state they're from) not having shotguns, etc..

Also, the movie really lacked any sense or logic or reasoning or whatnot. Like the heartwarming man-to-man drivel about the Baby Jeebus and puppydogs and baseball. Yes, Virginia, Jesus does exist, but there are nasty aliens trying to eat us and he really doesn't care right now.
Also, the mean old atheist made the children cry!! Whaa. I almost cried too, because they couldn't pray over the dinner rolls. How dare he.

Besides, the movie wasn't scary - It was hilarious. Alien hands popping out from under doors and through coal chutes isn't incredibly frightening.

My heart was warmed, but my brain melted and leaked out of my ears.

In Response to jon (#1260):

The problem is that Shyamalan usually makes his movie within another movie that happens to be the same one, and people often want to see the exterior movie more than the one he's making. With Unbreakable, I heard a lot of people who were pissed because it went into all this philosophy of comic books stuff; they wanted a good action thriller instead, which was the wrapper around the movie. With Sixth Sense, most people don't get too emotional about their ghost movies, and the ghosts were ghosty enough, so whether you were watching it for the ghosts or the people, you were happy. Now Signs has come out, and everyone thinks it's about the aliens. You said you wanted the movie to focus on the CNN and stick with all of that. That's not the point of the movie; the aliens are a wrapper around the movie about the dilemma of whether you shape your world into an ordered one or a meaningless one. The aliens are about as relevant to the heart of the movie as whether it's in Nebraska or Pennsylvania

In Response to Corinthian (#1501):

I realize that there was to be a point to the whole movie other than scary aliens. It's just that while they were making their point, they also managed to make an incredibly stupid movie.
Maybe its just the nasty atheist in me talking, but what does faith in anything have to do with your life having meaning? It wasn't an incredibly deep or meaningful 'message' they were trying to put across, just one section of society's idea of what's important (such as pretend-as-hard-as-you-can-that-Baby-Jesus-did exist-so-you-can-be-happy). They pushed every emotional-appeal button, and I really dislike that sort of thing. It was almost to the point of being patronizing. Don't get me wrong though, I don't expect anyone else to feel this way.
On top of all of that, they put this particular point across while aliens were attacking. It seemed to be one big contradiction.
Once again, I'm not trying to be a big mean idiot or anything by attacking one particular 'faith'.

Just saw the movie. Still working on what I think of it. But here are my thoughts (as a work in progress) and reactions to what I've read here.

First, I agree about the aliens being lame. Beyond all reasonable belief. Of course, most fiction has some element that's not beleivable in the literal sense, and I've never found a good way to express the difference between good elements that demand suspension of disbelief and elements which are bad because they are total crap.

The fact that the aliens weren't physically all that scary (couldn't win a one-on-one fight with a poorly armed, untrained human; could apparently get through a window but not a door (or, for that matter, wall; the setting was a rickety old farm house) was questionable, but then again, the physically superior alien invader is a bit of a cliche, so in a way I was pleased to get away from it...

But, as Jon pointed out... the water thing. Come on. Never mind the oceans for a second. Since we don't know exactly what they were doing with the humans they killed, we'll even not get into the fact that their prey are mostly made of water. But our atmosphere is full of water too. It's called humidity. Sometimes it falls out of the air; it's called rain. I think it's fair to say that it's always raining somewhere.

Now I'll step away from that for a moment. What was the movie about? Was it a movie about an alien invasion? No, not really. Which is why I don't agree about the "important events" being out in the real world. There have been lots of alien invasion movies, and that's fine; but this wasn't one of them. This was about what was happening to Graham (and, perhaps to a lesser extent, his family) in the midst of the invasion. It's sort of like historical fiction set during WWII, but not about WWII; except that the history never happened and is a lot more lame.

So does the fact that the invasion was peripheral excuse how lame it was? Part of me says "Yeah, that wasn't the point"; the other part... Well, he wanted to tell this story about Graham and his faith and about the question of coincidences vs. signs, and I guess he wanted to tell it against a unique backdrop... but he could've at least found a backdrop that was a little less bad.

As for the religious angle onto which aeon latched... No offense, but I think that's a bit of an overreaction. I didn't see that strong a Christian push in the movie. Yes, the main character, being a former (and once again) priest, put the ideas of the movie into the context of his religious faith, but that didn't seem like a major element of the plot.

But even if you insist that the idea of signs is somehow inseparable from the idea of Christianity, I'm not sure we're exactly being asked to come away believing. Shyamalan is showing us a world in which there are no coincidences. You shouldn't have to believe you live in such a world in order to appreciate a story about such a world. I liked Unbreakable, but I don't believe in people with super powers.

On the other hand, it's nice if some message from the movie is applicable to the real world. The Sixth Sense seems to talk about being less fearful of the unknown; helping instead of fearing. Unbreakable might say something about rising to a calling even if it seems unbelievable to you. What does Signs say that I could apply to real life? Maybe something about seeing good fortune -- whether it be a sign or a coincidence -- and making use of it. Maybe he really was preaching faith in a "higher plan" of some sort. I'm not sure. Can't say it ruined the movie for me either way.

Was the movie a Hitchcock rip-off? Well, it did in some ways follow his "old-school" style of horror (to the extent that it used any horror film element at all; I would have to agree with aeon that it wasn't a scary movie, though I'm not convinced that it needed to be, either). It relied more on the audience and a build-up of suspense from off-screen events. Less on on-screen...

Read the rest of this comment...

In Response to jon (#1262):

Not fun to crack on Pennsylvania? Sure it is [imdb.com].

In Response to aeon (#1508):

I don't think it was so much about your life (the things you do) having meaning as about whether life (the things that are happening around you) has meaning.

In Response to TheWizardofFez (#1280):

It's too bad when someone lets the opinions of others decide what stories they think are good. Which is why I avoid spoilers like the plague, which in turn keeps me away from most movie reviews (since most reviewers can't seem to figure out how to write a good, spoiler-free review).

I'll admit that there are movies I just avoid seeing. Time's to valuable to waste on every piece of fluff that comes out of Hollywood. Gotta have some standard for expectation to help decide what to see...

But, while you can come away agreeing or disagreeing with this movie, liking it or disliking it, I would have to say that it was worth seeing just for the chance to form an independent opinion. I certainly don't think the previews did it justice (but then, they almost never do). YMMV.

In Response to Corinthian (#1501):

My main issue with the movie? Those bastards turned my town which has a starbucks across the street from a gap and a single pick-up truck (other than that there are more SUV's than anything) into some backwater hicksville. I have no problems with backwater hicksville, but instead of using my town the directer (who appearantly will only work near philly) could've headed west to lancaster county where the amish farmland is. and there's my beef.

In Response to Corinthian (#1501):

If you create a framework on which you build a structure, you had better first make sure that your framework is stable.

In Response to mea37 (#1529):

Mea37 said: As for the religious angle onto which aeon latched... No offense, but I think that's a bit of an overreaction. I didn't see that strong a Christian push in the movie.

I attempted to word my second post to be vague on purpose (I seem to have failed). I tried to refer to christianity as little as possible, and when i did it was because it was the particular faith that was used in the movie. I couldn't have really cared what they used.

My problem lies with the idea that your life is meaningless unless you believe nothing is a coincidence, your life is directed by jesus, allah, or the great magnet (doesn't matter what). A nice fluffy happy idea, and [sarcasm] I enjoyed sitting through all that heart-wrenching mush for about two hours [/sarcasm], but I still think it's retarded. The scenes that made these points just seemed so..forced. It wasn't done well at all.

I hope you don't get any ideas that I disliked the movie because it used the idea of religion. I particularly enjoyed Donnie Darko, and that has a [insert deity here] guides fate & etc & whathaveyou. Except crazier.

In Response to Lonely Goatherd (#3682):

Actually, it's already been mentioned several times in this thread that we understand the movie is _not_ about an alien invasion, and that there is another message in the film. The point most people seem to be driving at, is that said message was not presented well.

If you're trying to present something using a familiar theme as a backdrop, you still have to make that backdrop believable. Having good ideas doesn't necessarily mean you're good at communicating them.

In Response to stilllwaiting (#3696):

It seems to me many of the posts had more to do with disliking the message than with thinking it was poorly presented. For my part, I don't think the message is "true" in the sense of direct applicability to the real world. (That said, there may yet be something of use to take from the idea that coincidneces sometimes aren't. It happens every day that someone misses valuable information because they think it's a coincidence and ignore it.) I'm not sure if it was meant to be a direct statement about the real world, and either way my appreciation for the movie is not hurt by my disagreement with the message.

Ideas of fate and faith could certainly be (and have certainly been) presented against simpler, more familiar, and in fact more plausible backdrops. Does the shaky packaging detract from the message? It can in two ways: (1) if the audience gets so hung up about it as to be unable to think about the message, or (2) if the intent is to show the message as real-world applicable.

So why choose such an "out there" backdrop? It is out there, to the point of being gratuitously implausible. So, why? Maybe to be original. Maybe that's how far he had to stretch reality to make the message stick (within the framework of the movie) as completely as he wanted (which would speak, whether deliberately or not, to the inapplicability of the message to the real world). Damned if I know.

Signs was ok. Lots and lots of plot holes (already been pointed out but the inability to open doors and lack of guns were my favorites) and we were all faced with the ugly fact that Shyamalan is a worse actor than Keanu Reeves. But, what I wanna know is do people tell you guys that they were scared when they saw that movie? I'm wondering if it's just a thing with some of my dumber friends or maybe I'm overestimating the rest of society.

In Response to Pacific (#3784):

Maybe they were scared at the prospect of a worse actor than Keanu. I know I am.

Still not motivated to go and see it, however...

In Response to mea37 (#1529):

To be fair, the water thing wasn't so bad. Water _IS_ toixic to some things. Anything is in large enough quantities. Generally cells come with a protection against water. you go removing that protection, expose the cell to water and ... it bursts. If there was less water where the aliens came from, they wouldn't have evolved the protective mechanism for water, so while in small amounts of water, it's fine, not so much water going into cell, increase the amount of water, too much water enters cells, and cell bursts. (Always assuming the life is cellular, but the point is that many things are only harmful in large enough quantities. Another exapmle would be liquid nitrogen, I've had the stuff poured over me, it makes you damn cold, but so long as the contact is fairly short, you're fine. Leave it there for a while and you freeze and die. Water tends to stick around, unlike nitrogen, hence us staying wet when we leave the shower. (surface tension and all that). (I think that this next bit is correct - there are even some life forms on earth that find water toxic, found in volcanos and the like)

Anyway, long and boring post over, I'll go back to sleep now.