Signs are all bad

Rating: Null/10 (5 August 2002)

Yech
I've seen complaints that Signs is bad because it is a bait-and-switch, the trailers and previews and ads selling one movie only to learn that it's another. True.
I've seen complaints that this turkey has all the pacing of Unbreakable on Valium. True. Very, very true.
I've seen complaints that Signs is selling a particularly stupid religious message. Hoo boy, is THAT true.
Add to that list the fact that Signs also has a movie atheist delivering a slur on all nonbelievers and you've got a good example of what happens when people keep telling a film maker how talented he is. In case you have no idea what a 'movie atheist' is, it's a bigoted stereotype that's all too common in movies and television - a character, usually a devout believer of one sort or another - who suffers a loss or trauma, usually the death of a spouse or child, and who then declares that they no longer believe because they hate God. The point of the stereotype is to allow the audience to knowingly smile at the foolishness of hating something you supposedly don't believe in. The foolishness is that such a straw man character is so common.
So we have the nonbeliever's version of a steppinfetchit character as the protagonist of Signs and early in the movie he announces that people in the world shake out into two categories - those who believe and so have hope and those who don't and so live in fear and hopelessness. Imagine my surprise that a character who supposedly represents my point of view announces that I am of a group that is inherently fearful and hopeless.
Things like that make a movie a little hard to take.