Great intimate science fiction

Rating: 10/10 (20 January 2003)

I thought this movie was great. I've never seen such a film that looks at global events entirely through the eyes of a single family. You really get a better sense of just how afraid someone can be when their world turns upside down, and in the case of the Hess family, the main characters, it turns upside down again. As with all of Mr. Shyamalan's movies, you end up realizing that you've been watching a different movie than what you thought you were watching when the end arrives, and he always pulls it off with great skill and a different twist. The man clearly loves to tell a good story, and Signs is as good a movie as they make with a great story. The performances are spectacular, even from the kids, and the effects are simple and understated, but they pay off. I won't provide any spoilers here, but the film deals with the possibility of alien invasion and takes off from there into philosophy and faith and a whole bunch of other stuff. A great movie, maybe even the exact opposite of films like Armageddon.