Let me say first before I rip this movie to shreds… I liked it, really I did. Look no movie about god and space aliens is going to be perfect, especially when it has to have a Shyamalanesque drawn out suspense and drama.

One good thing I can say is he does not dilly dally around getting to the point. All we need to know about the characters is there in the first few minutes. We know who Gibson is, what his big issue is and then get right to the point when we see the crop circles or “Signs”. M. Night knows crop circles are a joke and a hoax but plays upon that shred of doubt that still exists in people's minds and says “What if….” Like what if some of them were real. What if Aliens came down and made a few crop circles. Some people saw them and said “Hey what a cool hoax, I think I’ll copycat that!” They get caught and then everyone thinks they were all hoaxes. But the twist is they are really real and everyone thinks they are a hoax. So clever M. Night!

Now sit down and get a beer and let me explain my philosophy on moviegoers to you…

The way I see it there are 2 kinds of moviegoers. There are some people who only concentrate on the main story at hand. They see the movie as it boils down to a single thought. They are looking for the deeper meaning and moral of the story. They can live with the pesky little details that don’t make sense and to them it’s no big deal. Then there are those people who will notice all the little details that just don’t add up. They say “Hey we can suspend belief with an alien invasion, just make it a BELIEVABLE alien invasion!”. Now you get to read the rest and guess which type of movie goer I am. There will be a quiz….

Okay, so in the interest of this study lets set aside the quest for faith in god, the love and grief of a wife and a child and any other pesky deeper meaning this story might have and ask ourselves. Why in the heck were the aliens there in the first place?

There are several theories bantered around by the son. Aliens starved for resources and bound for invasion or Friendly explorer aliens are the 2 choices offered up by the kid. The aliens obviously have superior technology since they have traveled light years to get here and can seemingly make their ships invisible during the day time. They can make crop circles without being spotted doing do, they have already been on the ground as Mel sees one long before the invasion begins. We are told that the crop circles are like navigation beacons for the aliens. Right. Everything seems perfectly logical right?

Ah hem… I have a few areas of concern. Come with me on a journey of skepticism…..

1) These aliens managed to find their way across the galaxy to us yet they need messages carved in corn to find their way to our cities? And um if they were there to Harvest people as the movie alludes to, then why cornfields, Farm areas typically are sparsely populated.

2) They are so advanced yet they carry no weapons? Only some little poison gas thing that is apparently part of them? Laser gun? No! Phaser Disrupter? Nope. BB Gun? NO! Pea shooter not even a lousy klingon knife? Nothing! And apparently they are such menacing scary aliens that M.Night Shyamalan himself, a scrawny little Indian guy, managed to subdue one single handedly locking him in the pantry. Then he waits in the car for Mel to arrive. (I woulda tore my rear out of there!) Then he tells Mel not to go into the pantry which OF COURSE, OF COURSE, OF COURSE!!! Mel can hardly wait to go running into the kitchen and take a peep.

3) M. Night tells Mel he is heading to the water. He’s heard the aliens don’t like water…. Geez Mel, this guys is the director and wrote the story LISTEN TO HIM and get the hell to the lake…

4) The first alien caught on video is sighted crashing the birthday party of a 6 year old in Guatemala or something and goes running off after being discovered peeping at them from the bushes. Now call me crazy but I would think that hostile Aliens might want to spy on world leaders…the rich, famous or powerful instead of little Latin children…. Hmm maybe these aliens prefer cake, dolce de leche and piñatas….

5) Water seems to be like acid to these aliens. Yet somehow they have no problem running all through the cornfields. Ever run through a cornfield? Well now let me splain somethin to you Lucy , ya see to grow corn ya have to water it. A LOT. Plus there is that morning dew thing… So it’s highly unlikely they’d be perusing in the corn. Or maybe the little girl was right, the tap water tasted funny because there was some “Alien Off” in the tap water and only the tap water was harmful to them… Pretty thin premise.

6) The only possible, plausible motivation for the alien invasion that I can think of is the Aliens were on a sport hunting mission. Yes armed only with their wits and their poison secreting gland hundred of aliens are sent to earth to see how many humans they can bag or scare to death using no other weapons. “May have been some kind of alien reality show….” And of course Mel unlike most farmers, ranchers, cowboys or rednecks, had no shotgun. It seems to me what a baseball bat took care of in minutes at the end, a shotgun could have done in seconds and a couple 38 specials could have stopped the whole invasion. Hell A SQUIRT GUN would have saved their asses!!!!

And from the “You got to be kidding me” file.
· Mel holds the door of the basement shut with an ax propped up to wedge it closed whilst the alien hordes knock knock knock….. (open up open up let me in….)
· The Aliens storm the house, little girl does not cry…..
· The baby monitor… come on.
· I think the sheriff was on something. Valium maybe. She always seemed just a little too calm.
· Either Mel or Joaquin was adopted.
· Yeah I’m gonna go chasing aliens through the cornfield weeeee!


Bottom line, These aliens have been obviously monitoring us for years since the first crop circles cropped up in the 70’s or earlier… Watching us, monitoring our communications, our radio and TV programming. You’d think they would have at least seen one episode of Dallas and learned hand to hand combat at least as well as Krystal and Alexis.

But alas it did not matter if it were aliens, bogeymen or flying nukes. They needed some doomsday scenario to make the plot work. The real detail was concentrated on the spiritual and psychological aspect of Mel’s character.

Recommended:
No

Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older