Suspense over Substance

Rating: 7/10 (20 November 2002)

"Signs" is a movie that's mainly interesting because it's genuinely scary (at least in the cinema). The director M. Night Shyamalan proves beyond a doubt that he's very adept at creating suspenseful moments out of basically nothing and uses suggestion and vagueness to build the tension. It works really well.
The rest of the movie is so-so. The acting by the adults (Mel Gibson and Joaquim Phoenix) is quite strong but the little kids are once again nearly unbearable to watch, mainly because they say things no kid of their age would normally say. The story is kept intentionally vague since it serves only as a framework for the suspenseful scenes, which I think is excusable. It's not like we needed a new "Indepedence Day" anyway.

Where the movie does go wrong, however, is in the message, "Everything happens for a reason", it's trying to get across. There's way too much quasi-religious talk in this movie for my taste. I don't believe in predestination and this movie certainly didn't make me change my mind about that. The whole alien invasion (including all the lives that it claims) seems to happen simply to give Mel Gibson his faith back, and Mel's son has asthma solely because he wouldn't die of the alien nerve gas that way? Come on...
Without the message and the religious angle, I would have loved this movie. As it is, the movie is still pretty good (since it's really scary) but not a classic like "Sixth Sense" was.
**1/2 out of **** stars