Creepy and Intelligent

Rating: 9/10 (1 August 2002)

After the wonderful Sixth Sense and the equally beautiful (but unfortunately less successful) Unbreakable, Signs is M. Night Shyamalan's third big movie. Like in his previous two movies, Night creates a world which rules have already been set a long time ago (Ghosts, Super Heroes, Crop Circles), and places identifiable characters in it. Signs works on two levels:
On the surface, Signs keeps you on the edge of your seat for the full 110 minutes. Not because of the expensive special effects, big explosions or massive fighting-scenes (don't expect Independence Day II), but because you care for the characters, and you know just as much as they do about what's going on: almost nothing.
If you want to look further, the movie deals with some of the same topics Night addressed in his previous movies: characters dealing with their place in the world, and how to accept the world they're faced with. It also, through the doubts of the former reverend played by Gibson, deals with the question of how people find or lose faith. The movie, however, never gets preachy, and lets the viewer decide for himself how to interpret the events Gibson witnesses.
The ending is something different for Night: not a complete surprise as in his previous two movies, but still something you will be talking about when you walk out of the theater. The music is wonderful, the cinematography is beautiful, the acting perfect: Signs is one of the best movies of this year so far.