Doesn't pull off what it attempts to

Rating: 4/10 (24 February 2003)

Possible Spoilers!
Not being an enthusiast for either Mr Gibson's or Mr Shyamalan's work, I waited for my flatmate to rent the DVD before viewing this movie. I must admit, I had been intrigued by the trailers - looked like a good old fright-from-outer-space picture to me. It isn't, though - more's the pity.
"Signs" does employ a few time-honoured tools of the genre - inexplicable phenomena (corn circles - could have been a good hook), the fact that you don't really see the creatures until quite late, and the classic situation of it all happening to (or at least centring on) a lonesome farmstead, all these are classic devices.
But what comes along in this garb is not actually an alien-shocker sort of film, but rather a drama of spiritual rediscovery (potted: Cleric loses wife, as a consequence loses faith, but it turns out her last words as well as some of the action in the film preceding the finale can be interpreted as divine predetermination/intervention, and badabing-badaboom: he rediscovers his faith). Quite apart form the fact that I'm personally not likely to be impressed by challenge-to-faith storylines (unless done in manners as excellent as "Dead Man Walking"), I think this is what spoiled the film for me: trying to both spiritually challenging and suspenseful, it fails on both counts.
As to the first: the alien invasion is not plotted well enough to make the viewer really interested. We don't know why they come (or where they come from), we do not get to know anything about their greater strategies, and most of all, we do not get a satisfying bust-up at the end (someone found a way to repeal them, apparently - that's all we are told. And there's a scene in which an alien is vanquished by the judicious use of a baseball bat and tap-water - effective, maybe, but hardly riveting. "independence Day" - need I say more? Not a film I find intellectually interesting, but then, so few of the alien take-over genre are). Of course I am aware of the fact that the invasion is incidental to the film's main theme, the vicar's return to the godhead - rather like the murder in Gosford Park - but a) the trailer should have given me an idea of that and b) that storyline is beset with problems of its own.
Actually, for me at least, its really only one problem: its too pat to be in any way engaging. At the centre of the picture, a dialogue scene is used to introduce a dualist view of humanity: those who believe in predetermination, and those who believe in the essential randomness of life. The film then continues to integrate disparate occurrences (from the dead wife's last words to a child's bad habit of leaving half-empty water glasses standing around) into the parson's final revelation that God must exist because why else would it all make sense in the final instance. Unfortunately, it's all too glib for my taste - where's the spiritual challenge? Getting over a loved one's death has been done better before. Not to mention the fact that the central dialogue mentioned is unbelievably trite, theologically about as sophisticated as a penny catechism, and geared towards an audience of the literalist kind with a Manichean world-view (dare I say US American at this point?) - and not towards anyone with a shred of interest in the psychological machinations of fitting a disastrous event into an essentially optimistic religious world view.
Failing both as a suspenseful and technically interesting exercise in the alien invasion genre and as an exploration of crise de foi, I cannot recommend this film - watch it when your flatmate/partner rents it, but don't rent it yourself.