A flawed film, but still worth a watch.

Rating: 6/10 (23 December 2002)

OK. Well I'm in two minds about Signs. On the one hand, it was nice to see a semi sci-fi movie that wasn't filled with special effects and didn't suffer for the lack of them. On the other hand, the plot was about as difficult to guess from the start as the plot to Titanic. Note that there are some spoilers in the following paragraphs.
I hadn't realised M Night Shyamalan directed this until afterwards, but the similarities with Unbreakable and Sixth Sense are apparent. There's the same sort of unearthly theme running throughout all the films.
However, the tension built quite nicely and although I kept expecting the film to degenerate into Independance Day, it never did, to its credit.
On the other hand, from the first "Father....Please don't call me Father" line that Mel delivers, it was obvious this was going to be about finding one's faith again. Frankly, I think the film would have been better if Gibson's character had gone the other way at the end, but that's just my opinion.
As the tension builds and it looks increasingly like the aliens are going to finish the human race, I couldn't help but think that some kind of Deus ex Machina ending was on the cards. Sure enough, the aliens are defeated by water, of all things.
This is where Signs began to loose points in my mind. I'd already been somewhat amused by the fact that the aliens could apparently be defeated by something as simple as a pantry door but later, could get into a boarded up house. But then it rains and their whole invasion is called off? Was it raining everywhere at once? For creatures that had travelled from who knows where to get to Earth and could make their ships invisible, didn't they think to bring a raincoat? If they'd visited Earth before, you'd think they'd have noticed the fact that it's a very wet planet.
The ending isn't even that original. I can think of two films, War of the Worlds and Day of the Triffids, where the enemy are defeated by such simple means.
It's a good concept for a film and it's sad that the aliens weren't thought out a little more beforehand. A flawed film, but still worth a watch.