Lame

Rating: Null/10 (20 August 2002)

M. Night Shyamalan has often been compared to a young Steven Spielberg. He has the same ability to craft and build up a story that Spielberg has always had. Where the comparison ends is that Shyamalan has not proven that he can finish the job.
All three of his films, this one, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, are superbly crafted. He's good at writing suspense, buildup, and quiet horror. Not many can argue that the payoff of the Sixth Sense was about as good as it gets. Unbreakable played along the same lines, but the payoff, while ingenious, practically ruined the film, in my opinion. The payoff in Signs also ruins the film, and even lacks the ingenuity of Unbreakable. It is dull, unimaginative and disappointing. Shyamalan's angle in Signs is not to show the invasion of the aliens (Independence Day), but to show one family's reaction to that invasion, Kind of like Night of the Living Dead. The difference is, the people in NOTLD are acting and reacting to what's happening around them. In Signs, the focus is more on a dead wife/mother, faith, and the eccentric behavior of two children. And it's not very interesting and makes for a lousy payoff.
So where did Signs go wrong? I don't know, or I'd be getting paid 12 million per movie like Shyamalan did for this. I don't have the imagination to devise a film/script like this, and Shyamalan doesn't either. This film didn't make me think. It didn't scare me. It wasn't profound in any way. And I think it was trying to be/do all those things. I can't say how this film should have ended. But the way it did end was the wrong way. After an enormous success right out of the gate, Shyamalan has failed twice in a row. And all of his films have been "pass or fail", in my opinion. Films that build up this much throughout have to deliver a knockout punch.
On the plus side, Signs was very well acted. Mel Gibson was solid, albeit unbelievable as a farming reverend. Joaquin Phoenix, normally an enormous ham, gave a solid and quiet performance as Gibson's younger brother. However, the real acting chops in this film go to the two kids. Rory Culkin, in my opinion, has confirmed himself as the best child actor currently working in Hollywood. I thought he was outstanding in You Can Count On Me, and his mature performance here shows that wasn't a fluke. Abigail Breslin plays Bess, the young daughter. Despite the fact that Shyamalan was trying to do something spooky with her character and failed, she still gives an outstanding mature performace. It's a shame she couldn't have done more.
The nice eye that Shyamalan has demonstrated in his previous films is not lost here, either. His Hitchcockian knack of filming creatively and not relying on static shots and angles plays well here as it did in Sense and Unbreakable. But Shyamalan needs to spend as much time, if not more, concocting dazzling endings to these films as he does building them up. Again, while I didn't care for the ending of Unbreakable, I at least give him credit for creativity. The ending of Signs is lame and unimaginative. Spielberg would have blown us away.