A very odd story

Rating: 6/10 (27 January 2003)

Just saw this on DVD, and wonder about the high rating it's received on IMDB. Great acting helped very much with this slow moving piece. But the scares are non-existent, so there really was not much build up in suspense; OK, maybe a bit with the basement scene, but with the slow pacing of the movie, it seemed to take forever to get there. The story has some very odd twists that in the end just don't work.
The most interesting parts of the movie were the religious conclusions. I didn't expect a religious theme in this movie, and am always pleased when Hollywood chooses to deal straightforwardly with such difficult topics. Introducing aliens and combining a large series of weird character traits and actions are very odd--and certainly not straightforward--ways to surmise that "God exists." I'm still not 100% certain what to think, and perhaps that's a good thing to say about a movie like Signs. Even so, the movie mainly leaves you with that uncomfortable feeling that it could have been a lot better.