Silly ending aside, this is a very good sci-fi thriller

Rating: 8/10 (17 June 2008)

First came The Sixth Sense, then Unbreakable: two near perfect movies in a row. M. Night Shyamalan hasn't made a film that good since, but that does't mean his subsequent works aren't worth watching: they are flawed, but Shyamalan's talent in creating compelling characters and a creepy mood shines throughout all of them.
Continuing in the direction of his previous two hits, Shyamalan tells a supernatural story where plot and characters are favored over action. Signs takes place in Pennsylvania, where the widowed farmer Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) finds crop circles just outside his house. The phenomenon keeps repeating itself night after night, prompting all kinds of speculation: Graham's brother (Joaquin Phoenix) and children (Abigail Breslin and Rory Culkin) believe it's the work of God; Graham himself, who used to be a priest but lost his faith after his wife died in a car crash, on the other hand, doesn't know what to think. However, it seems like something is moving in the fields and scaring the animals, suggesting those circles might foreshadow an alien invasion.
Just like he didn't deliver a straight horror movie or a traditional comic-book flick, Shyamalan tries to get beyond the conventions of sci-fi, using the alien premise as an excuse to focus on a man's spirituality and his quest for lost faith. The religious subtext may annoy science-fiction purists expecting immediate action, but if all genre films were alike, people would get bored pretty quickly, wouldn't they? Besides, isn't it a bit hypocritical to criticize Shyamalan for making a meditative alien movie and praise Steven Spielberg (one of the director's major influences) for doing something similar with E.T.?
Also, spiritual message aside, the trademark suspense is consistently present, meaning that formally speaking Signs isn't that different from the average sci-fi thriller. In addition, the acting is as strong as expected from thespians working with Shyamalan: Gibson, in an unusually understated role, finds the soul of his character with relative ease, partly because his Catholic upbringing suits the film's themes, partly because he's used to playing widowers, as seen in Mad Max, Lethal Weapon and Braveheart; Phoenix is equally unpretentious, and the children manage to be sympathetic in a not too cutesy way.
Granted, the famously bad-mouthed ending is very weak, even downright stupid if compared to everything that came before it. But that's just the last fifteen minutes: the rest is a classic example of a good story well told.