E.T. Was Scarier Than This

Rating: 3/10 (16 September 2002)

After hearing all of the hype and also my wife insisting that we see this one because of our mutual interest in crop circles, UFOs, extraterrestrial encounters, etc., I actually had my hopes up that I could finally see a first run film in a theater that didn't make me fall asleep because of Hollywood predictability. Wrong again.
If you haven't seen this film and expect memorable acting performances or anything interesting or informative about the phenomena listed above, forget it. 'Signs' is actually a story about a reverend who loses his faith when his wife is killed in an accident and his personal struggle to reclaim it. That's it. Yes the world is invaded by hostile beings who use crop circles as road maps and they try to snatch Mel Gibson and his family, for some reason, but these themes are lost in the sad puppy-dog looks of Gibson and Phoenix as they whine through the film and strive to prove how one is sadder than the other.
Stiff acting, dabblings ripped out of E.T., Close Encounters, Independence Day, Alien and sappy emotional drama are all a viewer will get from this incredibly overrated waste of time. The aliens show up, make crop circles, and everybody gets confused and concerned. Then the aliens are actually spotted and the world sits on its hands, scared and unable to apparently do anything, at least in Mel Gibson's self-absorbing world. The whole alien encounter thing could have been left out and replaced with a rabid gang of kangaroos that were menacing Mel Gibson's family and the result would have been the same.