What is that sign ahead? It's got to be a U turn, STOP, or detour!

Rating: 1/10 (28 August 2002)

***SPOILERS*** ***SPOILERS*** SIGNS: It has got to be a U turn, STOP, or detour! On the plus side, this film did have several jump-out-and-got-ya scenes, it was in color and the dialogue was in American English. Unfortunately that's all of the plus side. We are introduced to a family still in mourning; where the Mom/Wife/Sister-in-law has been killed in a freak accident some months before. From the trauma of losing his wife Mel Gibson's character resigns his position of a community spiritual leader ( A Priest in some unnamed Faith) We soon understand that he not only doubts God, but he is actually P***ed at him. His brother, son and daughter are suffering not only because they too have lost a parent/sister-in-law, but the head of the family (Mel) has lost his spiritual conviction and love for life. It is apparent that his faith is turning dark, and he is becoming more reclusive.
Enter in the Water-soluble aliens. Crop-Circles, we are lead to believe, all along have been communications for alien invasion plans. The aliens mission, IQ, and combat tactics are all found in a book purchased by Mel's eleven-year-old son, from the small Pennsylvania farm town's local bookstore, which we are informed had ordered it by mistake. (I think it was a hardbound copy of the 'Signs' Script.) From information there in contained, they all survive, the days and nights of terror that follow. For comic relief, all, but Mel, at one point don a hat of aluminum foil, which resemble twenty-pound Hershes kisses (an obvious Pennsylvania product tie in). This is done, so the aliens can't read their thoughts, and maybe control them too. It's in the kids book, and so far it ain't been wrong. With out the poor attempt at a classic science fiction plot, this could have been rewritten as a family drama. Mel had his character down well, but those dam pesky aliens. It seems unlikely that a species of aliens would want anything to do with a planet covered with a liquid (water) that dissolves their tissue. It was tough knowing that the kids super-soaker in this `Signs' invasion, would have been like the yodeling cowboy in the movie `Mars Attacks'. `Signs' however wanted you to believe. It wanted you to believe that the Aliens, who, though super athletic, are adversely affected by light and melt from water, and run around nude for a force recon combat mission, on a hostile planet. Also, the alien's spacecraft now appearing by the thousands over the cities of earth are never met by a military response, Just a lot of looking up in wonder, and panic. While the only offensive gesture offered is the pointing of news cameras. (Anything more violent may cost more to show on screen, and they may not want to come back to earth, for a sequel.) `SIGNS' could have been an `ET' warm fuzzy type of movie, where the aliens crop signs, are made by 'alien' secret agents, living among us. The C-C in Tom's field pointed out that ` The human creatures here need solace, and a renewed faith in the Creator'. The characters would eventually discover that different signs, in various fields around the planet mean different things like; 'Help this person', `Take this one back home', `These idiots still think Crop Circles are hoaxes', you get the idea. Maybe the priest, or one of his children, would be the only human that could read the messages, etc. The version we got was pretty worthless. Thinking they were in the 'The Birds' Tom and his brother board up windows and doors, they should have at least recalled that this was only marginally effective on five pound birds. Moreover, it doesn't even make a good waste of time here, for soon after the last nail is hammered, the family is forced in retreat to the basement shuddering in terror. The Aliens have no tools or weapons, other than a poison gas they secrete from their bodies though a tube protruding from their hand, and can use it only if they hold you down, and squirt up your nose. These space wimps attempt to get in by using the basement doorknob, or the old forgotten coal chute. They have all night, but fail to breach the inch thick basement door or the franticly stacked sacks of dog food. The next morning after surviving the night of terror, they all emerge to learn that the aliens have departed, leaving behind their injured. Mel's son is having a seizure for lack of medicine, and is grabbed up by one of the stranded invaders, and gassed. He must have been hiding in one of the many Hitchcock shadows. Gibson, a veteran of many military films, should have pointed out the flaw in any global invasion strategy which includes giving the enemy (us humans in this case), samples of it's army to study alive, or dead. The aliens are tall and skinny, at least eight feet tall; at no more than a hundred twenty pounds, and as aliens go, not that bad looking. Enter Batman. A one time local baseball hero, the 20 year old brother of Mel's character takes an enshrined Louisville slugger from the wall and kills this stranded alienated alien. Mel's character, finds faith anew when he discovers that his sons chronic asthma didn't allow him to breath the poison gas used on him, so the boy lives, and the movie concludes showing the passage of time with a winter shot of the house. All religious Icons back on the walls, Mel is once again `Father Thomas', and God is spelled once again with a capital `G'. The aliens are gone with no further mention. (and they all lived happily ever after) To me this film is a big stinker, because I could see within it, no less than three good movie ideas slamming into one another and the mutant result was what we were forced to swallow with our popcorn.