Why do people think this is such a great movie?

Rating: 4/10 (17 September 2003)

I'm a huge movie fan. I've seen well over 3k movies, if not more, and I just don't get it. Shyamalan is really bombing here. He was reaching on Unbreakable, though I can understand some of the intrigue there. I was still disappointed in Unbreakable after seeing his first major film success, The Sixth Sense, and in looking back I can see that he seems to be trying to be the next Spielberg in the age when Stephen was stuck on children's stories and fantasy movies. But Signs is really not all that good. Okay, it's got some okay acting, some nice photography, decent editing, reasonable sound work, but sheesh, it isn't all that. It moves relatively slowly, even for a 98 minute film, it fails to build all that much suspense, until the end, when some of the shots are quasi-unique, but it's just too family like for this type of really suspenseful subject matter and I was quite disappointed after seeing two sources, including all the people at imdb.com recommend it so highly. It's not that great a movie people. I once held M. Night in high regard, but now I plan on staying away from any future projects he might undertake. Sorry, M. Night, but please find a different direction. This one's not working. About the best I can give it is a 4/10.