Hitchcockian elements done well, but poor sci-fi ruins movie

Rating: 4/10 (22 August 2002)

Some say that "Signs" is a movie that must be appreciated for its human elements, a salute to Hitchcock, where the plot is not so important as the experiences lived on the screen. To director/writer Shyamalan's credit, the first 30 minutes is a fun ride, displaying lovable quirks in the characters and several "boo!" moments that are uncommonly innocent in their setup and resolution. But the lame sci-fi elements and the religious grandstanding at the end simply ruin the movie.
SPOILER ALERT: If you don't want to know who is making the crop circles, don't read further.
The trouble with "Signs" is that it builds up to something that requires a solid plot in order to carry the movie's end. This movie is built around the experiences of the Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) family as a result of the aliens who created the crop circles. In the beginning of the movie, Mel and his little brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix, whose distinctly un-muscular build makes him poorly cast as a former minor league hitting champ) try to corner the crop circle artist, but seem to be dealing with a foe who can jump from ground to roof and scamper off into the corn fields like a superhuman. Throughout the movie the aliens are scaring the living daylights out of everyone, what with crop circles on a massive scale, animals sensing something really spooky, and space ships that are hovering over big cities but somehow cloaked to invisibility during the day.
We see through a series of flashbacks why it is that the Hess family is in a constantly on the edge of complete emotional breakdown, and Graham explains to his brother that he has completely lost his faith in God and concludes every person is on his own. "There are two kinds of people in this world," he says, people who believe God is guiding our lives, and people who believe that life is a series of coincidences/random occurrences. The plot that Shyamalan is interested in developing is how Hess shall regain his faith and the love of his shell-shocked family.
Where the movie starts to feel cheap is where the aliens begin to show themselves but they have absolutely none of the superhuman strength displayed at the beginning of the movie, nor any degree of intelligence that must be expected of a race traveling through space and carefully plotting to pillage the earth.
The aliens are simply pathetic and the ending feels like a sham in order to wrap it up in under 2 hours and deliver the dramatic payoff. And the payoff may work for some people: the people who believe that God is guiding our lives in intricate detail. For the rest of us, this movie concludes with a heavy-handed theology statement by Shyamalan that, together with the ridiculous resolution of the alien problem, simply ruins the good feeling the first half of the movie gave us.
I rate this movie a 3 out of 10.