At its best during the lighter moments

Rating: Null/10 (11 August 2002)

*********SPOLIERS AHEAD***************
It seems I had been watching trailers for "Signs" for months in the pre-feature darkness. I was led to believe this movie would scare the CROP out of me. Unfortunately, that is precisely where I feel this movie fails.

Sure, there are a couple of pop-you-out-of-your-seat moments, but there was no sensation of impending doom, despite the best efforts of Gibson, Phoenix, and the two talented tykes to convince me the end of the world was nigh.
I now believe much of my disappointment is rooted in the now-thoroughly debunked phenomenon known as crop circles. Anyone who still feels aliens are hard at work making geometry out of greenery probably sleeps with a wreath of garlic to ward off werewolves. When Spielberg brought us the return of Flight 19, mysterious radar echoes on the air traffic control screen, and toys that spontaneously came to life, he established the plausibiliy of alien visitation before we ever saw a spaceship or creature. Crop circles fail to tee up the terror,
I don't mind that the director goes cheap and only tells us about the destruction going on outside Mel's private little world, but perhaps a few frames depicting awesome alien power might have heightened the tension. There were only vague reports of armageddon on the radio and tv. While I'm on the subject of those TV reports, I thought after spotting the home video of the "scary" alien, that when it re-appeared in person, it might look more, oh, I don't know, realistic??? Come on, ILM, this baby had a 62-large budget, and you give us a dude in a space suit with pointy teeth and a wrist-deployed vaporizer? Yeah, I know this isn't a movie about aliens, but did the ONE we do see have to look like fodder from Mystery Science Theater 3K?
"Signs" does elicit some hearty laughter. Sprinkled in among the faux fear and trumped-up terror are several genuinely funny lines and set pieces. I'm sure they were intended to break the gripping horror, but for me, they only punctuated the mediocrity.