Review of Signs (2002) by Kai82 — 30 Dec 2019

The first half is a good movie with solid character development, suspense and good storytelling / set up. Then came the most stupid plot twist and story telling failures I have seen in many years. The best description would be its like chocolate coated brussels sprouts (I don't want to use the term sugar coated turd).

For the good part: The characters, set up and development are consistent and well fitting. There is nothing to complain in this compartment. The premise and set pieces are also well done and I like the suspense that is slowly created.

For the bad parts that will inevitably drag this film down: The plot twist is idiotic. I can not describe it accurate without spoilers but I will try to give you examples before the spoiler section. The villains are so incompetent that they should not be able to survive by themself.

Even the James Bond villains would face palm in disbelieve. They are far superior and can outsmart us at any given time but are also so stupid that you would ask a child for better solutions. !!! Spoiler warning !!! You have be warned.

Here is the point of no return: The villains are aliens who want to conquer earth. Problem 1. Water works like high concentrated acid on them. Have you seen the earth from space? It is nearly 75% water.

Also there is water everywhere. Even in the air is humidity. This is the last place they want to visit ever. Problem 2: They are far more advanced than humanity. They can travel between star system in their lifetimes and have nearly perfect cloaking devices.

This is far beyond our technological abilities (We have theoretical solutions for that which we cant build yet or we don't know how to archive). The point is that they did not bring weapons and tools with them.

They have no protective gear (water), no weapons that are a treat (Handgun outclasses everything they use) and can be trapped by normal wooden doors. Problem 3: This movie makes God look cruel and incompetent.

The twist is that everything was planed by God to help the characters overcome this threat. He killed the main characters wife in a car accident (See perpetrator) and with that tortured him, his family and the accident perpetrator (He did fall asleep for the first and only time during driving in his life and sees this as faith).

He gave his son asthma and his daughter a minor disability. This restores the main characters faith in god. By the way I am christian but not a zealot / fanatic. God is better than this and could solve this issue in much better ways.

Overall this movie had potential but is wasted. I don't know how much the studio has interfered with choices. There is a rumour that the aliens should have been demons and that parts of the story should be done in another way.