Signs: Difference between revisions

[[File:signs_ver2.jpg|thumb|375px|No, not that. [[The Happening|That]]'s something else.]]

 

{{quote|''So what you have to ask yourself is what kind of person are you. Are you the kind that sees signs, sees miracles? Or do you believe that people just get lucky? Or, look at the question this way. Is it possible that [[There Are No Coincidences]]?''|'''Graham Hess'''}}

 

 

The story focuses on the Hess family, consisting of a faithless former preacher, Graham (Gibson), his asthmatic son, Morgan (Rory Culkin), his ostensibly autistic daughter, Bo ([[Abigail Breslin]]) and his ne'er do well younger brother, Merrill (Phoenix), who live in a podunk farmland community. Like the rest of the world, they start thinking that it's an [[Alien Invasion]] being done as a stealth infiltration. The entire story is told through this farming family in Pennsylvania as they watch the paranoia grip the world through their television set. Of course, since an off-screen repulsion isn't too dramatic, there's still a fight scene. Oh, and there's a lot of [[Anvilicious|incredibly blunt]] [[What Do You Mean Its Not Symbolic|religious symbolism]], with the story serving more as a story about a man finding his faith in God again as the "signs" start to coalesce.

* [[Absurdly Ineffective Barricade]]: At one point, the family barricades all the doors and windows downstairs. Since they don't have enough wood to barricade all the upstairs windows, they instead barricade the doors of every upstairs room which has a window. It's only after the aliens break into the attic that the family realizes they forgot to barricade the attic door.

** This is actually lampshaded: when Graham announces they're going to nail the windows shut, he's asked how he thinks this will work.

* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: {{spoiler|Mostly happy, though. Thousands of people where killed in the invasion, but all the members of the family are alive and safe.}}

* [[Chekhov's Armory]]: {{spoiler|One of the main ''themes'' of this film is that ''everything'', even if it seems bad at the time, is a [[Chekhov's Gun]], planned out by God}}.

* [[Chekhov's Gun]] / [[Chekhov's Skill]]: {{spoiler|Merrill's baseball bat and his skills with said bat.}}

* [[Irony]]: The book on extraterrestrial life the kids buy in town claimed that prospective alien invaders would likely be short due to their superior intelligence, would use advanced technology to subjugate humanity, and would probably be vegetarians. {{spoiler|The actual alien invaders were easily over 8 feet tall (and were obviously not smart enough to realize that attacking a planet and beings made mostly of the one substance that could kill them would be a bad idea), used biological weapons in hand-to-hand combat, and were strongly implied to be carnivores, harvesting humans for food.}}

* [[Jump Scare]]: A few. Examples include the Brazilian news report, Graham seeing an alien on his roof, and the scene where Graham spots an alien's leg sticking out of his crops.

* [[Manly Tears]]: Mel Gibson is ''very'' good at crying.

* [[Missing Mom]]

[[Category:Science Fiction Films]]

[[Category:Films of the 2000s]]

[[Category:Signs]]