"SIGNS"
(Serious Review)
In the music industry, a brand new artist's first album may be a hit, but their follow up may be a flop, leaving their 3rd album a gamble. The same can apply to the movie industry, such as the filmmakers behind the hit "Independence Day" who then gave us the flop "Godzilla" and then crossed their fingers with "8 Legged Freaks".
Well, in the case of filmmaker, M. Night Shyamalan, it doesn't seem to matter how his last film did because his subject matter intrigues all audiences regardless.
In his first film, he stunned us all with "The 6th Sense". He then mildly followed that up with his take on the ordinary guy acquiring super human abilities with "Unbreakable".
Well, with "Signs" he chose to dive into "Independence Day" meets religion meets "E.T.".
Here we go…….
Mel Gibson is a former priest 6 months removed since the death of his wife.
He now lives on a (corn) farm with his brother, Joaquin Phoenix ("Gladiator") and 2 children. One day, as Mel decides to take a stroll through the corn, he comes upon Crop Circles that have suddenly appeared within the fields (for those who aren't familiar with them, Crop Circles are widely believed to be the makings of aliens). Soon after, the news reports of the same thing appearing in various spots around the world, and this begins to frighten and interest Mel's family, but Mel is determined to believe that there is a logical and scientific explanation for the circles. However, when strange things begin to develop within his own home, he's forced to consider other possibilities, including his loss in his faith.
In my opinion, "Signs" had awesome potential and could have gone in several directions, but unfortunately ended up being too ambitious which I felt ultimately confused and hurt it.
Subjects such as the Crop Circles, alien visitors and the questioning of one's faith are all individual movies in themselves. In order to pay due justice to them, they would all require their initial discovery, related questions and concerns, reactions and opinions from a wide variety of people, etc. But if you squeeze them altogether into 2 hours and limit the reactions to the family in their farm home, some crucial aspects are either going to be left out or hastily thrown in and turned stereotypical.
I expect more from Shyamalan. Ever since he Wow'd us with "Sense", I have come to expect the same clever and intruguing results from his following films. Maybe my expectations are too high.
"Signs" was entertaining and did have its moments of suspense (and even humor), but he tried to do too much WITH too much, and the result was providing us with too LITTLE.
C+