Hammer's "Signs" Review

[Hammer]

Well, after hearing A LOT about this movie, the wife and I decided to go have a look. Here's the good, bad, and the ugly....

Pros:
A great character-driven movie. Mel Gibson does some of his best work here. Even the kids were quite believable and well portrayed. Pay attention to most of the dialogue in this flick, as everything seems to tie together as the movie goes on.
Another plus is there's finally another director out there who actually knows how to scare you. Folks, Jason\Freddy Krueger\Michael Myers, severed heads, limbs, other body parts and gallons of fake blood have been WAY over-used in Hollywood, and to be honest, all that crap is not scary by themselves. Calling all moronic moviemakers! It's CONTEXT, not CONTENT! And in many respects, its what you DON'T see that will scare the bejeezus out of you. Darkness, noises that can't be placed or defined. Is it just some freaky bird, frog, or maybe the wind? Is your mind playing tricks on you? Or is there actually something evil out there watching you? The creepiness sets in fairly early in this flick and never lets you go. And in some spots, you WILL find yourself, amazingly enough, truly afraid. (Well, as much as you can be in a movie theatre....)
All in all, one of the best truly scary flicks since The Blair Witch Project.... (Remember, Its what you THINK you saw...)

Cons:
As much as this movie succeeds in characters and overall creepiness, it fails miserably in plot and details.
While there are some "spiritual" tie ins, this IS an alien invasion movie. The problem is, while the aliens are quite scary, they're also quite, well, WIMPY. Yep, I said it.... wimpy.
Get this. They have the technology and intelligence to make interstellar travel possible. They've even figured out a way to mimic the F-117 and B-2 as their ships can't be detected on radar. But they WILL leave HUGE markers all over the Earth and turn on their landing lights for everyone to see for hours on end... so much for the surprise attack.
You don't think some F-16s loaded down with lots of nasty explosives would be checking out these lights that are just "hanging" there do ya?
Then you say they don't need to surprise us, they have their space technology to beat us down. Well, these guys have figured out a way to break the laws of relativity, but figuring out a way to break through an old, thin pantry door will absolutely stump these geniuses. What about their weapons, or unbeatable armor or force-fields? Nope, a good old Louiville Slugger can beat those evil beings down quite nicely. In fact, one platoon of Marines could probably slaughter a few hundred of them with some reliable automatic weapons.
While the aliens themselves are quite scary, their invasion capabilities are somewhere between slim and none.
You know, I just thought of something, no wonder they invaded small northeastern farm towns, because there might be GUNS in the house of a Texan....

Overall, this is a great scary movie that will have you apprehensive and jumping out of your seat, just don't try to punch too many holes through the details....

[jj_jonathon]

lol...you missed the best flaw in my opinion....

....water is like acid to them, but they breathe our atmosphere which is made up of oxygen and hydrogen (and more of course) without it fizzing on them! and like you said hammer...they have no super armor/force fields etc....so they arent wearing gear to filter what they breathe...and its silly to think that they have special "lung" filters or something like that....bleh...i hate having to look at movies with science...lol..i still think this movie rocked...but yeah, the aliens didnt fight..lol....

pansy aliens!!