Not the greatest movie of all time, but still a damn sight better than most.....

Rating: 9/10 (11 August 2002)

The main problem with reviews for certain movies is that they can only negatively influence your perception of the film when you finally see it. The less you know about Signs, the better. Do not expect anything in particular. If you have not seen it, I recommend that you stop reading this review after the first paragraph. I won't be revealing anything about the plot, but the simple fact is that Signs is a rare movie, one that does not need a $100 million marketing vehicle to sell patrons on the story before they even get to the theater. If you enjoy simply sitting back in your seat and inviting the filmmaker to tell you a story, your time will be well spent.
After reading a few negative reviews, it seems that some people went to the theater expecting to see Independence Day II. Complaints that the alien wasn't dazzling enough, whines that it was boring and nothing happened in the movie...you people have been fed a steady diet of "Let us do the thinking for you" stories for so long that you're now completely unacquainted with the concept of "delayed gratification." NOT seeing the aliens more than we did was a GOOD thing. You just don't realize it. This is the kind of movie that no one seems confident enough to make anymore, with a few notable exceptions. The very BEST stories anyone can tell (and in case you forgot, that IS what's most important in any decent movie, is the STORY. George Lucas, make a note of that) have to do with people, and that's what Signs is about. Real fear in a movie has almost nothing to do with nifty CGI effects and creepy aliens ripping off heads and limbs (although that IS sometimes pretty cool), but it has a LOT to do with how well the filmmaker and actors convey fear through the situations and characters.

This was a decent way to spend a couple of hours, as long as your cinematic diet is not the equivalent of chili Fritos and Mountain Dew. If you're looking to be spoon-fed a skeletal story that's merely the framework for expensive visuals, stay away from Signs. But if your tastes are more mature than that of the average waterhead who keeps dragging the film industry down with their crappy opinions about crappy movies (i.e. Attack of the Clones), fork over a few bucks and give this a try.