Don't Believe The Hype - Especially Not Your Own

Rating: 1/10 (9 February 2003)

*** Possible Spoilers Ahead ***
I was originally sad to have missed this movie in the theatres, because I had heard good things about it. So it was with anticipation that I rented the DVD and settled back for a good evening's viewing... ...Ooops!
I always start by trying to say something nice about a film, because almost no movie is universally bad. Well, "Signs" is extremely well-shot, with production design and camera work combining seamlessly to evoke a sense of atmosphere and growing panic - hats off to Tak Fujimoto. The casting and acting are good too - Mel does a classically Gibson good job of creating the role of the self-doubting agonised ex-Father father, Joaquin Phoenix provides a good foil as his ingenuous brother, and both child actors are convincing and endearing, their performances realistic enough to engage your sympathies.
Sadly, that's as far as it goes. I started to worry as soon as I saw that M Night Shyamalan, not satisfied with writing *and* directing the movie, had decided to shove himself in front of the camera too, in his role as the hapless killer of Mrs. Mel. Bad move, M Night. You're no actor, but worse still in one stroke you evaporated my suspension of disbelief - I'm instantly asking myself "Good grief - it's the director! why the Heck does he feel the need to be on screen?" This totally smacked of self-indulgence and a nasty little suspicion of self-publicising arrogance. It's almost as if, after just three movies, M Night has decided that he deserves a Hitchcock-esque cameo performance in his forthcoming movies as some sort of signature - except he picks out a role for himself that is way larger than incidental.
And destroying the suspension of disbelief is what this movie achieves effortlessly as the action progresses. Forget the obvious borrowings from at numerous other mainline sci-fi sources - M Night would probably call these deliberate "hommages", and frankly it helps pass the time to pick these out. You'll find Night Of The Living Dead, Independence Day, Day Of The Triffids, War Of The Worlds at the very least and there's more.
This however is not the problem. It's the gaping plot holes, the sheer stupidity of the actions of both people and aliens in the context that's been created for them. To highlight just a couple out of countless - aliens capable of interstellar travel being unable to get past a flimsy wooden door? Those same ultra-genius aliens not realising that perhaps bringing an umbrella along with a crowbar might be a good idea?? Mel deciding not to bother calling the authorities to alert them there's a trapped alien in his neighbour's pantry, and for him to just go on home instead??? I couldn't avoid hearing leaden clang after clang as these incongruities kept smacking me between the eyes.
I also scowl at the massively misrepresented marketing of "Signs" - it simply cannot be a movie about alien invasion, because it's so threadbare of plot, so it *must* therefore be a contrived vehicle about one man's loss and subsequent regaining of his faith, although the massively laboured and contrived series of coincidences in the movie - the fortuitously half-full water glasses left around, the precognitive message from the dying wife, the well-timed asthma attack - would be enough to turn the most rabid atheist back to God. Who needs faith in those circumstances, because blatant proof is being rubbed in your face.
In summary, my central criticism of "Signs" remains the way in which we the audience are implicitly patronised as being stupid. You can almost hear the thought process - "Give the poor fools enough style and atmosphere and they'll not even notice the fact that there's no sense in the plot." Don't believe your own hype, M Night. Sure, "Sixth Sense" was a good movie, though less original and far less "shockingly twisted at the end" than the media would have had us believe, but "Unbreakable" was no more than poor to average. "Signs" has its good points, but never presume you can get your audience to swallow everything. Yes, we like style and love atmosphere, but sorry, if you're going to set up a narrative context - and remember you wrote the story too - then we need even vaguely convincing plot too. Sorry, but we as viewers deserve better than this.
Four out of Ten - and that's for cinematography.