This movie tried to be too many things at once, and each aspect was poorly done

Rating: 1/10 (20 August 2002)

Signs had so much potential, but it really disappointed me when I went to see it. The movie tried to inject humor, science fiction, thrill, and drama all into one plot. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it was done very poorly.
The humor wasn't that bad, and I laughed at most of the jokes. However, there were jokes at suspenseful moments and it would just ruin the mood. However, humor wasn't the biggest shortcoming of this film. It was just out of place.
The science fiction aspect of the movie was horrible. They spent the first 1/3 to 1/2 of the movie developing the suspense and mystery of the crop circles and then...***SPOILER***...they ended up being for navigation? How lame is that? I think most of the people there wanted to see a more interesting reason for them. The aliens were also done very poorly. They tried to build suspense by only showing parts of their bodies, but that didn't really make me all that apprehensive. Eventually when they showed the whole body, the alien was incredibly stereotypical. Skinny and green.
The thrill part of the movie consisted of purely hollywood cheap thrills. Sudden music with sudden camera changes with something new. Yes, it made me jump. Then, I swear, I started laughing my butt off in the movie theater. It was just so simply stupid. A real thriller is psychological which makes you not be able to fall asleep when you get home.
The drama part was done poorly too. The biggest short coming in my opinion was that you never really became attached to the characters.

The whole thing with the "signs" being placed etc was to try to prove a philosophical idea. This wasn't done so badly, however, they basically told the audience "Some people believe in God and fate, and others don't." Usually, when a movie comes out which tries to make you believe something different, it comes up with something new that most people haven't thought of. Since the idea was so unoriginal and shallow, all of the work done to develop the signs etc was a waste of time.
In conclusion, I went into the theater hoping to see something which made me think in different ways like A.I. and other science fiction border of reality movies do, but instead, I left wishing I didn't spend the $6.00 to see the movie (not to mention the $4.75 I paid for the popcorn which happened to not be that good that night, lol).