lame & derivative

Rating: Null/10 (26 February 2003)

On the basis of Shyamalan's 3 major films, I think one can start drawing conclusions about his work. First of all, he has "tackled" the 3 greatest mysteries of life: Death, UFOs, and Comic Books. His treatment of all 3 is simplistic to say the least. It would be an insult to the New Age movement to call them that, they seem just lukewarm meditations based on late-night student philosophy ramblings or just too many comic books. So "Signs" was not so much a disappointment for me as a confirmation (and a waste of time.)
His trademarks, at this point in his young career, are jarring implausibilities in the stories and unnatural, painfully stilted dialogue. The acting is almost uniformly wooden. To underscore this, he even had the nerve to "perform" in one of the major roles of "Signs" and reveal his shortcomings in front of the camera as well. (These are not flaws for audiences of limited intelligence, so I predict his continued success with the mass market.) In fact, the only thing he seems to have going as a director is a good visual sense. So I would not be interested in seeing any future films by this director unless he should happen to hire a writer or two to help him reveal the Great Mysteries with a little more intelligence.