Frail rehash of "War of the Worlds"

Rating: Null/10 (20 January 2003)

There is no doubt that M. Night Shyamalan is a gifted writer and director. "The Sixth Sense" was ample proof. Therefore it is a mystery why he bothered with "Signs". While he may be good at creating suspense and will no doubt create great movies in the future, this was nothing but a pale remake of "The War of the Worlds".
Good actors and interesting cinematography did not disguise the horrid stereotypes. For example, the aliens turned out to be little green men. Gee, how imaginative. Why hasn't anyone else thought of that? At least H.G. Wells (who wrote "The War of the Worlds" in 1898, for those who haven't read many books) used some imagination in creating his aliens. Then, as the aliens were running amok and destroying all humans, it turned out they were killed by something as simple and common as water. Another bit of pale copying. Wells created aliens that also ran amok across the earth and then were wiped out by common bacteria (with no human intervention). Can anyone else see the obvious copying? Mr Shyamalan is a fine writer but he should rediscover his orginality.
Some suggest that "Signs" attempts to make us think about predestination and "are we alone?". Maybe. But the attempts are farcical in this context. As soon as the movie opened with images of shapes cut into corn fields, there was a collective groan. This was a news story some years ago, and a trashy one at that. The audience knew full well that speculation about alien activity was bogus and that these cornfield "phenomena" were man-made hoaxes. Suspending one's disbelief was rather tricky after this reference to an issue that belongs on moronic, overhyped, third-rate TV shows, like "Believe It Or Not".
"Signs" was entirely predictable and unimaginative, especially for a talented writer and director. He must have needed the money, as must Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix, who must cringe when looking back at what they helped create. (And let's try to forget that another damned Culkin kid appeared in this movie!)
Proven actors, good photography and lots of suspense cannot disguise a frail, overused concept. No amount of glossy finishing touches can make up for a bad design.