A few forgivable plot holes

Rating: Null/10 (8 August 2002)

Signs is one of those movies that require a certain suspension of disbelief to be entertaining. If you walk into the theatre having decided to ignore any discrepancies between the film and your beliefs, it is a very enthralling, scary movie. However, it is very easily ruined if you often find yourself saying "Well, that would never happen" or "Why did they do that?". That having been said, I enjoyed Signs despite having asked myself those very questions on 3 occasions.

SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT!
1) I don't know about anyone else, but I find it hard to believe that a race of aliens capable of traveling millions of light years through space to come to our planet would be unable to open a wooden door with an axe under the doorknob. I know that the kid said the book claimed they would avoid using excessive technology to avoid nuclear attacks, but why couldn't they have brought a laser or even an axe of their own?
2) At the end we find out that the aliens were harvesting humans. Halfway through the TV report says that the alien vessels were over 266 cities world-wide. This makes sense because cities are a good place to find lots of people. Why, then, would the aliens choose to land in the middle of Mel Gibson's corn field in the middle of nowhere? There were, what, 4 people within a mile radius? Why didn't they go 47 miles down the road to Philly where there were hundreds of thousands of people to harvest?
3) At the end when Merriel is beating up the alien.....why doesn't the alien fight back?! It just stands there and lets itself be beaten until water falls all over it. Why didn't it spray that poison gas on him?
Thankfully I was able to look past these issues and enjoy Signs as it was meant to be: a tense, paranoid feeling throughout with sub-plots questioning faith and belief.
7/10