Alright, I saw this movie today and overall, I’d say it was pretty good. I just have a few problems with it.
The aliens are really wimpy. Here we have some race who sends an army however many light years to “harvest” the human race. So far, pretty standard. These said aliens have some pretty decent technology apparently, including a cloaking device for their spaceships which hover over major cities for a little while before cloaking. I guess they just wanted us to know where they were before they disappeared. They also apparently know to stay away from water (which turns out to be their weakness).
Now, these aliens with all their technology and supposedly aggressive nature have no weapons and no armor to protect themselves against water. Think about it. All they have to do is go down to Wal Mart and pick themselves up about a million rain ponchos and the world is theirs. And their “poisonous gas” weapons are ridiculous. They can invent cloaking devices but apparently the advantages of advanced weaponry like guns or even a god damn club are lost on these fools.
The aliens came here to “harvest” us humans. Harvest us for what? Batteries? (hah!) If not for batteries, then our nutrient-rich bodies? If that’s true, wouldn’t any mammal suffice? Are humans rich in some mineral or something like other, easier-to-harvest mammals are deficient in? It seems like if I were out hunting for food I’d rather take the millions of cows than the humans. Humans are notorious for being pains in the asses of our evil alien overlords.
As I see it, the aliens are either ‘allergic’ to either liquids in general, or liquid water. The atmosphere contains water vapor, even in dry areas like the aliens preferred. Maybe they aren’t that allergic to water, in which case, see above (buy a poncho).
That said, some of my friends argued that the movie is about people and story and not sensationalistic action. I can see their point, but a lame enemy is anti-climatic to me. Did anyone else have similar reactions?
I just thought of something else that annoyed me. Apparently these aliens can find their way to our planet halfway across the galaxy but can’t map the earth without placing crop-circles around the globe? Don’t these ‘advanced species’ have basic cartography down? They apparently know basic math considering they have interstellar travel mastered, so it seems to me that some kind of coordinates would be a little easier than a bunch ‘aliens parking only’ signs.
I absolutely hated Signs. Not only did the whole invasion plot device fall flat, but the characters failed to personalize themselves enough to gain audience (or at least my) sympathy. The pacing was terrible. Worst of all, there was no payoff at the end.
And while I’m complaining, what is the deal with Shyamalan and his ‘water is a weakness’ thing? He did it in Unbreakable, too. Was there a ‘water is a weakness’ thing in Sixth Sense that I missed?
I just don’t understand the praise this turkey is getting.
I just thought of something else that annoyed me. Apparently these aliens can find their way to our planet halfway across the galaxy but can’t map the earth without placing crop-circles around the globe? Don’t these ‘advanced species’ have basic cartography down? They apparently know basic math considering they have interstellar travel mastered, so it seems to me that some kind of coordinates would be a little easier than a bunch ‘aliens parking only’ signs.
I absolutely hated Signs. Not only did the whole invasion plot device fall flat, but the characters failed to personalize themselves enough to gain audience (or at least my) sympathy. The pacing was terrible. Worst of all, there was no payoff at the end.
And while I’m complaining, what is the deal with Shyamalan and his ‘water is a weakness’ thing? He did it in Unbreakable, too. Was there a ‘water is a weakness’ thing in Sixth Sense that I missed?
I just don’t understand the praise this turkey is getting.
the thing I disliked the most, although there are some very good points mentioned already, is almost more basic than any of those: the ‘bipedal-two-armed-single-headed-etc.’ aliens. I hate when movies/TV shows can’t come up with a better idea for an alien than ‘hey, maybe they look pretty much like we do’.
Note to film-makers: CGI exists. FX have advanced since the middle of last century. Use them. You no longer are limited to sticking a man in a rubber suit.
ASIDE: did anyone else see a resemblance in the ‘birthday party in Mexico’ videotape that shot the alien walking across the driveway to the famous Bigfoot video shot in the 70’s in NW US?
Another problem: What is it with asthmatic children and movies? The person with the aspirator schitck has been PLAYED TO DEATH. I know there are many people who are asthmatic and carry aspirators, but they seem to bear a special significance in movies that you don’t see in real life.
(I know it fit in nicely with the coincidence/miracle theme, but you don’t know this until the end).
Also, not only are the aliens not wearing special garments when they attack, but they are butt-ass NAKED. They have wonderful technology and they can’t even put on a loin cloth? A helmet? And how could they not know that water was lethal to them? What was all that observation work for if it wasn’t to find out stuff like that?
And why did the aliens have to look so humanoid? I thought movie-makers were beyond anthropomorphisizing aliens by now. Guess not.
Excluding these things, I still loved the movie. The dinner scene almost brought me to tears, and I was close to peeing my pants while they were under attack.
I enjoyed most of the movie. Fun sci-fi, B-movie kind of deal, I was really having fun with the aliens landing, the picture of their house in Morgan’s book, the growing number of cities with spaceships hovering above, great! And then we saw the aliens. Boo. Neither the design nor the costume was scary, they looked like freaking trick-or-treaters (Oh, my! What have we got here, some aliens! Honey, come look at the aliens on our porch, they’re simply darling. Here’s a Milky Way, kids, now don’t stay out too late).
Still, I really enjoyed the night locked in their basement with spooky noises all around. The part where they were still in their family room and they heard an upstairs window shatter and one of them said “They’re in the house now” Yes! Good! I couldn’t wait for the showdown. And when it came the next morning, good God! That was terrible. Anyone remember the episode of Doug where he couldn’t stand to watch a horror movie all the way through because the monster scared him too much? And then when he finally forced himself to, he couldn’t believe how lame the monster was. That’s what the fight with the alien was like to me. I expected to see the costume’s zipper and poodles fall out, it just wasn’t scary! And when in the middle of action, Mel Gibson has this big long flashback, Come on! If you can just phase out for 5 minutes and the alien doesn’t manage to kill you, I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I know, I know, flashbacks don’t really happen in real time, but still, urgh.
And the revelation, Swing away, what’s-his-name. I half-expected Chariots of Fire to start playing as he took his bat to Mork. It was just so hokey, sheesh. And then all the characters are saved and they return to a happy life, Graham finds his faith again, all is well. Happy endings can be okay, but I would much rather have something dark happen to these guys. The alien poisons Morgan’s inhaler before leaving, then they think they’re safe, Morgan takes a deep breath and dies! Or turns into an alien! Or I don’t know, anything but a happy ending.
And I felt like the movie was trying to go cutesy in the middle with Joaquin Phoenix (can’t remember his character’s name) and the kids sitting on the couch with aluminum foil helmets.
Anyway, I did enjoy the movie for the most part, it just could have been so much better. I wanted to know what the significance of their house was, why it was pictured in the book. I wanted a better idea of why the aliens came. I wanted a dark ending. I wanted more scary scenes in the cornfield. I wanted a big musical tap-dancing number in the middle with the aliens. Just kidding. It was an okay movie, but it didn’t really work for me. Maybe the writing was too weak to be a good movie, but too good to be a bad (but fun! crazy) movie.
I would recommend it to people though. The spook factor was pretty good.
I think the “lack of payoff” is a problem with audience expectations, not the movie. Did anybody really expect this thing to turn into an action-fest at the end? Though actually it did annoy me that they didn’t have the good sense to go pick up a couple shotguns.
I don’t see what the problem with humanoid aliens was. The film was intended to play off the popular conception of alien “greys” and what they supposedly do, not create something entirely different.
Wait a minute. Water is their weakness? Water, one of the most commonly found compounds in the entire universe is their weakness*???* Are these aliens from Oz or something?
Thanks for telling me that. I hadn’t planned on seeing the movie, now I’ll make doubly sure not to go. (When I saw the previews, I kept expecting Mel to say, “I see crop circles.”)
BTW, the best description I’ve heard of the aliens is “Abe Lincoln in workout clothes.”
Farmers have guns. Even religious ones. Not neccesarily to kill people, but to protect their family from wildlife (snakes, wollves, coyotes).
The aliens can build machines capable of reaching other planets, build machines capable of being undetected by radar, build machines with cloaking devices, can jump to the top of a roof, are invisible (nearly), can shoot poison gas out of their wrists, conduct military style secret reconaissance misisons, and they have walkie talkies. But they can’t figure out how to pry loose a couple boards? No weapons? No defenses? They come to a planet that is more water than anything else and can’t figure out “Hey, maybe we should protect ourselves against this stuff.” Sheesh. Then some people figure it out (how to kill them), but the news reports “Some Mexicans defeated them by some primitive means. No more details are available.” I would think the message “Use your squirt guns!” would be pretty easy to spread.
Super inteligent alien idiots help one shattered man prove that there is no such thing as coincidence. Terrible as a whole. But certain scenes were enjoyable. When they showed the alien on the news, Phoenix’s reaction had me laughing pretty hard.
I can understand the point he was trying to make, but if he could have done it and maintained some sense of plausability and rationality I may really have liked the film. Having a moral isn’t good enough. There must be an art to the execution and I think he blew it.
Never mind the idea that an all powerful god needs to ruin and destroy a few lives to save a little boy. Shouldn’t he be able to just decide to save the kid without killing anybody??? I’d rather not get into a religious debate, but it may be hard with the content of the flick. Even if it was his god, does such a series of events argue for or against him being worthy of Mel’s new found love? Makes him a dick in my book. Unless he can’t really control these things, in which case he ain’t the god that Mel believes in any way.
Makes a stronger connection with the Celestine Prophesy then the Bible.
Pretty good except for the climax. I was expecting something a little more imaginative than a standard alien monster movie for some reason. In addition to the numerous points mentioned above…
the alien is strong enough to pick up the kid one handed, yet can’t break out of the pantry??? Not to mention there had to be a window in there since it was back lighted so you could see him (?) moving. Bust a window out fella!
Why the signs by Mel’s house? All the other ships were over major cities, but they also invade this nearly deserted cornfield in the middle of nowhere.
There were some pretty suspenseful moments, but the cheesy ending really ruined it for me.
Well, I loved it. Thought it was brilliant. Loved the ending, thought the monster was creepy looking. I dug how you could see the other characters faces forming in its chameleon skin at the end. I absolutely loved the characters, even the kids. Shyamalan has a real gift with child actors. He gets really amazing performances out them. I liked the easy way he switched tones, moving from slow dread to breezy comedy and back deftly, often in a single scene. But most of all, I liked that someone finally made an sf movie that was more about characters than plot. It’s not a movie about how humans fought off an alien invasion, with a fighter jock US president as the main character. It’s about how a family pulls together in the face of incomprehensible tragedy, the aliens are merely a plot device. There were some holes in the plot, but I cared about these characters so much that I just didn’t care. And the movie just looked beautiful. There was this magnificent shot in the beginning, right after the titles. The camera passes over a picture of Mel Gibson with his collar on, and the audience thinks, “Oh, he’s a priest.” It pans over, and stops on a door, next to the outline where a cross had been hanging for years, keeping the wallpaper from fading, and the audience realizes, “Oh, he’s not a priest anymore.” Before a single word is spoken, before we even see a live character, he’s already established who the main charcter is and what the central conflict of the film is going to be, all with a fantastic economy.
A few specific things I’d like to address:
The aliens: Why were they there? What did they want? Why didn’t they use weapons? Why did they leave? I think they were slavers. Probably criminals. They weren’t here to conquer or subjugate, just to do a quick snatch and grab. They cleared out, not because people had figured out about water and were stocking up on Super Soakers, but because they wanted to clear out before the planets governments regrouped and started lobbing nukes. From when they go hostile until they leave is, apparently, not more than six hours. They grab a couple thousand new slaves and light out for their home star. Calling the super-intelligent is reading a lot into it. They have faster-than-light ships, but they aren’t necessarily the guys who invented them. Hell, maybe they left the Earth in such a hurry because they were afraid the rest of their people were going to show up and bust 'em. Why didn’t they use weapons? Who says they didn’t? They didn’t use them against Mel Gibson and his kids, but they didn’t need a bunch of plasma rifles to subdue a bunch of unarmed farmers. Plus, plasma rifles tend to lower a slaves resale value. Where they were facing armed resistance, they may very well have busted out the death rays. No, none of this was in the movie, because who cares? The movie wasn’t about the aliens, it was about Mel’s crisis of faith and how he finally pulls his life together after his wife’s death. Still, as far as I can remember, none of that is directly contradicted by the movie.
? I don’t see what you’re getting at here.
At that point, he was’t sure if it was an alien, or if it was friendly. Since it apparently takes two hours for the cops to get that far out (that’s how long it took the female cop to respond when he called in the first crop circle) calling them immediatly wouldn’t have helped. Afterwards… well, yeah, I was wondering the same thing. As the plot unfolded, it probably wouldn’t have made a difference if he had, but that was a definite oversight.
Either way, that’s more bad plotting than bad writing. The writing, the dialogue, was quite good, I thought.
So? There are any number of common compounds that are fatal to humans. How much of the mass in the universe comes in the form of flaming hydrogen? Just because water is common doesn’t mean that it was common on whatever planet these aliens originally came from. And, comments here aside, it’s not clear that the aliens were chased off the planet by bucket wielding earthlings. I think they left because they got all the humans they wanted, and the fact that some humans succesfully fought back was largely unrelated. Anyway, don’t let the naysayers here dissuade you: this is one of the better movies I’ve seen this year, and is an absolutely atypical science fiction movie. Would that more sf films were this thoughtful.
By “lack of payoff” I don’t necessarily mean an action-fest. What I did mean was some sort of revealation. There were so many inconsistencies and stupidities associated with the alien invasion, that I expected something to bring it all together, or at the very least, make the whole thing seem a little less stupid than it appeared to be on the surface. No such luck; it was just as stupid as it appeared.
I like your defense of the movie, Miller. But the water thing still puzzles me. It seems as if the aliens had been spying on the planet a while, and yet they handled the water threat pretty nonchalantly.
Also, I don’t think this could be called a drop-and-grab mission for the simple reason that the crop circles had been appearing for quite awhile. They had been lurking for more than a few years. If they had invested that kind of time and energy, one would expect them to have been better armed and prepared and more committed to fighting for the long haul.
Hand-to-hand combat makes no sense either. Why didn’t they do massive spraying of the planet with their magic poison gas if their goal was just to steal humans?
I agree that the aliens are secondary to the overall theme of the movie. But the message is easier swallowed when the story behind it is realistic.
It’s true that farmers generally have shotguns. Why? In case varmints go after your critters. (I just wanted to use the words “varmints” and “critters”.)
I wish I could ask Shyamalan all these questions. But I agree that the aliens don’t really matter in and of themselves; the movie could have had a natural disaster, a terrorist attack, or anything else that would bring on a crisis of faith and the need to find courage. There are a lot of unanswered questions, but that’s probably preferable to lame explanations. (Although it is hard to imagine a humanoid-shaped life form that can’t stand the touch of water; every bodily fluid we know about is water-based; it’s a really useful compound. I could posit that they require high salinity (or some other compound in solution with water) and that fresh water is bad for them. But at that point in the movie, given my emotional involvement, I just went with it.)
I had the impression that the phones were out by the time Graham went to Ray’s house; might be wrong about that. If you could contact authorities, of course having an alien invader trapped in a pantry would be pretty important.
Of course, it doesn’t make sense that you’d have to create crop markings to provide navigational aids; my theory would be that they were a pre-invasion tactic intended to sow terror and a feeling of helplessness. I’m glad the movie acknowledged that, in the real world, crop circles are made by a few guys with some ropes and boards.
The aliens normally would be wearing atomic-powered body armour and carrying weapons capable of leveling a city. However, this particular group of aliens are dedicated nudists who embrace a more natural lifestyle of harvesting other species by hand. And they love parties. Strangely, the alien spying on the Mexican kid’s birthday party felt an unaccountable twinge of sympathy pain when the kids were hitting the pinata.
If they’d been blowing away aliens with shotguns, it would be a different kind of movie; for better or worse, I think Shyamalan likes to stick to a certain tone. I felt a visceral satisfaction with Merril took down his distance-record bat and you saw his hands take an iron grip; it made me feel that the possibility of courage and greatness exists within us all.
So for me, Shyamalan’s movies have an emotional depth that keeps me from nitpicking. There are plenty of movies that are full of logical holes and also have cardboard characters and dialogue you could build a barn out of.
It is funny that the tv commercials I’ve seen recently for Signs have used rapid cuts and a loud soundtrack, the opposite of the movie.
IMHO, I think many folks I have talked to have missed the point of the movie.
The main plot (the alien invasion) is actually secondary to the sub-plot (renewing of faith). I think Knight pulled this off beautifully.
Take note of the very last scene. We don’t see news reports about the aliens. We see Mel putting his little white collar back on. In all of Knights movies, the last scene (or few scenes) have always been the “wrap up to the story” scene.
The problem is that there was an alien invasoin involved and folks were expecting an “Independance Day”. (This can’t be helped really…the commercials promoted the movie this way.)
Just out of curiosity, does anybody know what the minor-league distance hitting record really is? I couldn’t find that stat. 507 feet sounds pretty impressive; I wouldn’t want a guy who can do that to hit me with a Louisville Slugger.
I just saw the movie yesterday, and the when I went home I got a new Science News in the mail. On the back there is an advertisement for a book on the physics of baseball. Among the teasers is: “learn why a batted baseball can never exceed 545 feet”.
A coincedence? Depends if you are a type 1 or type 2.