Mad Mel's Mrs DiesAgain! (This is not a spoiler)

Rating: 6/10 (13 October 2006)

You know, you'd have to be seriously worried if you were Mel's wife in film. Black men in 1970s action flicks have a more tenacious grip on life. At least they generally cark it at the end of the film, gallantly laying down their lives when victory is at hand so the goody-goody white boy can ride off into the white-only sunset with a tasty bit of crumpet.
Mel's wives/girlfriends/love interests rarely make it past the opening credits.
Yep, Mad Mel has lost his Mrs and is mean as hell. But this time its god he's p* ssed with. Can even Mad Mel mess with the messiah? Sure he can.
Oh, and there are some aliens as well Ho Hum.
Signs is the third of the almost invariably enjoyable M Night Shyamalan films. It is a long way from being his best.
This is not, as many have said, because the film contains little in the way of "twist". Last time I checked, many great films had no twist at all and were still great. And Shyamalan's style is far more dependent on building suspense than pulling an unusually coloured rabbit out of the hat at the end of the last real. But such is the joy of Hollywood. Make one film with a great twist, and be forced to repeat it.
Shyamalan once again does a great job with suspense. Once again, family is integral to the plot. But the real core of this film is faith. Mel, you see, has a dead Mrs, and he knows who's responsible. Apparently, it's none other than god. Phwewee, somebody's gonna get hurt. Reeeal Bad!
Okay, this is mildly diverting for a while. Mystic Mel does a pretty good job of the whole "I'm not wasting another moment of my life on prayer" thing. Possibly the pain of him having to say these lines happily coincided with the pain of the character. Or am I being cynical? Mel can certainly act when he can be bothered, as he frequently showed  sometime south of 1986.
The supporting cast is also superb. Joachim Phoenix is excellent, as are the two kids. Cherry Jones does an excellent job as the benevolent, Fargo-esquire local copper shorn of all the Coenisms.
There was some great comedy. Mel walking into his living room to find Joachim and the two kids on the sofa with two boxes of bacofoil on their heads was a fantastic touch. And, dare I say it, Mel's personal leitmotif  the untimely demise of his better half  left a genuine lump in my throat.
But there are two fundamental problems with the film.
The first is the aliens. They just get in the way. Okay, they provide the basis for the suspense. Okay, there are some interesting parallels to be drawn between faith in god and the nutters out looking for aliens in prairie country. And I suppose the fact that the nutters are right in Signs adds some significance to Mel's own character development. But I can't help thinking that it is attempting to juxtapose the essentially frivolous with the deadly serious - and not very well  The Village does it much better. So, in M Night's film the nutters are right. But we all know (don't we?) that in reality, they're just nutters. So is it an apt metaphor or just all hogwash? The second problem is the finale. I'm biased possibly but to me it just didn't make sense. "The Lord Giveth and the Lord Taketh Away  seemingly on the basis of his own personal whimsy". I'm not convinced that this is a good basis for the massive character shift undergone by Melvine the Terrible, and you're left with the conclusion that either he's not a very clear thinker at all, or he's been throwing a rather childish tantrum for most of the rest of the film. Neither lend the script credibility.
Watch the Village is my recommendation. It's a massively under-estimated film (possibly Shyamalan's best). In many respects it is a half-remake of Signs, and is somehow less trite.
A minor work of a very good filmmaker. 6/10.