Signs of Things to Come? (SPOILERS)

Rating: Null/10 (13 August 2002)

I walked out of Signs in awe of how unimpressed I was. As much as I like Night's visual sensitivities I just could not walk away from this movie liking it no matter how much I tried. It's as if he's gotten formulas with a concept that didn't have much lasting power anyway. The Sixth Sense was a great film and so was Wide Awake. One made hundreds of millions of dollars the other barely made ten and it seems as if that has defined his style. While in his last two films the slow pacing has been somewhat to a benefit it absolutely hurts this movie that felt like it went on much longer than it had to. The movie is very strong at the beginning we get firmly established and differentiated characters and a series of escalatingly eerie events. The image of Morgan holding the baby monitor up to the sky is fantastic but that seems to be the last moment of greatness in this film after that it thuds. The things that worked in The Sixth Sense didn't work here while Mel Gibson did a very good job in this film the moments where he tells his children about when they were born were absolutely contrived. While the lack of visual contact with the aliens in the beginning is justifiable the lack of confrontation with them in the cellar itself is rather self-defeating. And thus, lends a certain feeling of anti-climax to the actual climax which by the way takes its jolly good time showing up. The casual identification of their motivation after the fact and also that we don't see them flee hurts the film. One of the best visual moments was spoken and it wasn't a case of the dialogue was so great showing it would hurt. The "Bird incident" was quite interesting. Ultimately Signs is a collection of interesting and creepy incident that have no idea where they want to end up. The climax which also included a montage like Shyamalan's last two films, packs no added wallop. While I didn't much care for Unbreakable the ending of that film does also provide an amazing shock. In this film, however, the end does not explain the whole of the film. Which is not usually a problem but certain critics who shall remain nameless said there was a quote 'You've got to be kidding me end.' There wasn't! Shyamalan's profound writing about how maybe there were 'No coincidences' was absolutely wrecked by the fact that he had to justify a logical ending with such flashes. I overheard someone say on the way out of the theater that "He's the King of Fancy Endings." This ending wasn't fancy at all and it like the film was a letdown. Also this film unlike the other two leaves many questions unanswered which defeats the style of ending and the film as a whole. All in all M. Night Shyamalan is very talented filmmaker who has to break out of this pattern. The beginning of his career is rather akin to Spielberg's with an early film that weren't much of a success and then a world wide breakout. They also stayed in the same genre for a while (Night's really in a subgenre). It truly is time for a change as far as his choice of subject matter goes, he's a very talented filmmaker and I will go see his next film I just hope he takes a new approach.