Signs is excellent and engaging shaggy-dog story.

Rating: Null/10 (8 August 2002)

With everyone and their brother oo-ing and ah-ing over the genius of M. Night Shyamalan's Signs I have to wonder if any of them sat through the films conclusion. Much of the praise is deserved. The film is masterfully crafted and directed. M. Night certainly knows how to build suspense and take the suspense/horror genre to a new level. In fact I just love this movie up until the end. Unfortunately unlike Shyamalan's prior films this film does not get better the more you think about it, instead it unravels like a cheap sweater and you are left feeling like you have just witnessed the most expensive shaggy-dog story ever.
Spoiler warning! Read only after seeing the movie (which you should do. The first part is well worth your time and money.)
Here are the things you have to be able to accept to be able to get into the films ultimate message.
1. God is willing to kill a mother and wife of a man of God just so she will give a clue that will years later prompt her brother-in-law to use a baseball bat that is hanging on the wall right next to him to whack an alien about to kill her son. (I mean I thought they were not attacking the alien because he was holding their kid in a threatening pose but apparently it was only because they couldn't think of what to hit it with.)
2. An alien race could develop technology that enables them to cloak their ships from view and travel untold billions of miles but never invent a single WEAPON!
3. A predator race that is raiding earth for humans to eat starts off their raid by floating in full view over major cities for a few nights, apparently just to let earthlings get ready. I mean they can be practically invisible when they want to. They could have all the humans they want before we even knew about it.
4. Not only could an alien race whose skin burns on contact with water ever evolve but they can walk around in our water-laden atmosphere without a protective suit. They also have a taste for humans, which are over 70% water. Ok, so maybe they make the people into jerky before they eat them or maybe they weren't even going to eat them but obviously they had no suits because the water did burn the alien in the living room. So why would these intelligent beings walk around on Earth which is also over 70% water (on the surface at least) without a protective suit?
For a movie that engages your mind so well for most of its running time Signs sure leaves a lot of gaping holes. I think M. Night is a brilliant director and usually his stories are very well thought out. This time however he has let us down in the end.
Also, his acting is not that good. He should probably leave that to others and stick to very small cameos.