Amazing heart in mouth moments!

Rating: Null/10 (28 January 2003)

I am a massive fan of Shymalan, I much prefer a film that has something meaty to say than something that tries to dazzle you with effects and promises something it ultimately fails to deliver. Speilberg's CLOSE ENCOUNTERS is one of my favourite films of all time and SIGNS is very much in that vein, it is a film about people, and the way people react to events in different ways. It is also about family, the bonds between family members and what they will do for one another. It was never intended to be an alien movie and that's why I love it so much.
One big problem I have with the naysayers is the nitpicking about how the aliens are finally defeated with water. If you listen to the guy on the radio when the family wake up after the invasion, he mentions how he believes they didn't come for the planet as suggested by Morgan's book, but that they came to 'harvest' humans for experiments of some kind. In which case the fact that Earth is 80% water wouldn't have bothered them, plus who's to say they even knew what water was...from space they would have seen a planet ripe for the picking, the reconnaissance teams they sent out would have found water and that's why as Ray Reddy mentions, they eventually placed the crop circles away from water...they perhaps were hoping that humans wouldn't have time to realise they had an aversion to water because it was an attack to gather 'livestock' in a sense, they never intended to set up home on Earth...
Every scene is wonderfully constructed, from the rippling glass window that echoes the water imagery throughout to the 'Blair Witch'-style horror tricks in the basement. You never know what's going to happen and Shymalan ratchets up the tension so that the final pay off is magical, wonderous and uplifting.
To fully appreciate any of Shymalan's movies you have to immerse yourself in the world and atmosphere he creates and go with it, he understands how to take the viewer on a journey as well as Spielberg or Cameron but his style is all the better for it's minimalistic approach. I was amazed by Mel Gibson, his performance is powerful because it is so understated. He portrays a man burning with inner love but afraid and unsure where to direct it. The children are amazing, so realistic and effective as well as affective. SIGNS comes as close to perfection in a film as I need.