| Movie Review of "Signs" I could have taken the easy road to this one. I could have made some cheap joke about how all the signs were there, for all who cared to see, to see. But that would have been not only a lame shot, but I wouldn�t be able to tell some story about myself. After all, we all know that I put so much of myself into these reviews and rants, don�t I? Of course I do. Anyway, let me just tell you a short little story about this rather insignificant encounter I had when I was taking driving lessons earlier this year. (I�ve since passed my driving test, and so, I would advise those of you who own cars to sell them, because Mr Klutz is now on the road.) My driving instructor, whom struck me as the sort of person who would stumble into a pub for a few drinks every single night, was telling me how important it is to read every single sign out there. There are signs that give us information, he said, and there are signs that try to warn us. The sad reality of things is that most people end up reading the signs that give information (I mean, in order to get to places, you gotta be able to differentiate Leicester from London) and ignoring the warning signs, like �Stop� or �No Entry�, and they end up failing their driving tests when they�re learners. Or worse, they end up knocking over dogs, cats or old ladies when they�ve got their licenses. Having almost read my future driving career like my head was some crystal ball, he then turned to look at the road and muttered one of those statements that when you divorce from the context of the situation, would sound like something some philosopher came up with while preparing a cup of tea. He said, �Read every single sign out there�. There was a moment of silence in the car. I then ran a stop-sign, and he screamed. Kidding. Oh well, let�s get into the review of �Signs� then. Just after I make myself a cup of tea. I�m back. �Signs� is, as of late Sep 2002, the third-highest-grossing film in the USA for the year, after �Spider-Man� and �Star Wars: Attack of the zzzzz�. Of course, that�s not gonna stay for long, given that the Potter kid and Aragon & friends are just round the corner. This isn�t really that surprising, considering that Star Wars, Hairy Potter, and LOTR have almost become franchises in themselves, and Spider-Man is on its way to being another cult trilogy or perhaps more. Try to imagine �Spider-Man 9: Spidey vs Charlotte�s Web� � it�s entirely possible. Anyway, it�s just that so many people have actually watched �Signs� that I myself open my inbox everyday to find millions of e-mails from people begging me to review the damn movie. That takes place almost entirely in the make-believe universe where Charlotte�s Web could actually pose a threat to Spider-Man. But we�ll get to the story. And why is he taking so damn long to get to it, I hear you ask? Because �Signs� was one of the most painful movie-going experiences for me this year. I don�t merely mean how the seats were cramped and uncomfortable, and how I really had to pee like halfway into the movie, but the fact that the movie was just so, unremarkable. And I keep reading and hearing about all these reviews, about how �Signs� is one of the best films of the year, and how it�s setting the benchmark for horrible � I mean, horror � films from now. This is the spot where you click out of here because there are spoilers ahead. Here we go then. Mel Gibson plays Graham, a former Catholic minister who lost his faith when his wife died in this horrendous car accident. He lives in the country, in the middle of cornfields, with his children Morgan and Bo, and his brother Merrill. Merrill used to be this real great baseball player, Morgan is asthmatic and Bo seems to think there�s something wrong with the water and some monster�s outside her room. Now, instead of segueing into some ripoff of �Erin Brockovich� and maybe getting some hot female to investigate just what the hell is wrong with the drinking water, Graham just keeps on giving Bo the same water to drink. Bo, brat that she is, leaves the water glasses all over the place, because the water is contaminated, or so she says. Whatever. Movie opens in the middle of Bucks County, where Graham and family have set up home, in the middle of cornfields. Graham finds that Morgan is missing, and runs all over to find him, only to have Morgan (played by Rory �I-ain�t-no-Haley-Joel� Culkin) direct his attention to the crop circles that have cropped up (geddit?) in the middle of their cornfields. The mysterious music plays. One night, Bo gets up to ask for a drink of water, and to tell her dad that there�s a monster outside her room. Graham gets up, rubs his eyes rather unconvincingly, then looks into the camera, and does his best job of looking shocked, and we pan to some Merman-looking thing on the roof of the building. Graham and Merrill think it�s some practical joke played by the resident prankster, and try to corner him, but of course, the mysterious creature runs into the cornfields. Graham runs after him, but of course, the torch drops onto the ground. He picks it up, and it flashes a little. I mean, like, do batteries never work in movies? He hits it violently, because that�s what you do when the batteries run dry, and lo-and-behold, the torch works again! He picks it up (he had hit it so violently that it dropped on the floor) and we follow the trail of the torchlight to see some grimy-looking leg pull into the cornfield. Gosh, most of this supposedly tense non-tension was just so not tense that I cannot even bring myself to add some semblance of shock or suspense in here. Day in the city. Apparently, that�s the cure-all if your baby girl thinks the water is contaminated. Morgan drags Bo along to the book store, where they pick up some book about crop circles. There�s this picture of three people lying dead on the ground in front of a burning house that looks suspiciously like the one Graham and his family live in. I mean, the symbolism almost killed me there. Morgan and Bo are, surprisingly, not that freaked out about it, and they go on to have pizza with their dad. Graham then spots M. Night Shyamalan (he who directed and wrote �The Sixth Sense�, �Unbearable� [but I really mean �Unbreakable�] and this piece of horseshit) walking around with groceries, and stares a little. And we cut the potential gay tension there, and head on back to the country. Just as the group get ready to alight from the truck, Morgan picks up Bo�s baby monitor and catches some static, and then we are instructed to buy that the static was communication by aliens. Don�t get me wrong here. I�m perfectly able to accept that aliens might exist out there, but a freakin� baby monitor? Contrivance has clearly moved into the country house for good, with his two suitcases full of crap. So we are then led into this downward spiral (and also in terms of quality) towards aliens coming down to earth, and crop circles being their guiding symbol. Insert some TV snippet about how an alien turned a Brazilian boy�s party into a screamfest, and everyone is officially freaked. Graham then goes to meet M. Night, who�s a vet, who is leaving town, heading towards the coast, �cos he heard that the aliens were afraid of water. Just as he drives off, he delivers what is quite possibly the worst line in cinematic history (for 2002, at least), �Don�t go into the pantry. I locked one of those creatures in there.� Yes, because that is both realistic and believable. Whatever! Graham goes in, grabs a knife, and tries to catch the reflection, to see if the creature is really that Merman-thing he saw. This part was rather creepy, then the alien reaches its hand (or is it feet) and makes to grab the knife. Graham chops off a few fingers (no, not his own) and flees. The family then make plans to board up every single window and door to the house. But not before cooking a grand dinner for all of them. Conveniently, in the midst of spaghetti and meatballs, pizza, chicken, and bowls and bowls of food, the baby monitor just sits at the dining table. Just as the meal is about to be finished, it starts transmitting alien signals (or whatever) to them all. They freak, and start hammering and boarding up the house. Aliens arrive. They kill the dog. The family flees into the basement. Some rather freaky thing happens, and Morgan gets an asthmatic attack. Graham tries to comfort him. It�s gonna be a long night, people. Day. The aliens have apparently fled. What the hell did they want anyway? They leave the basement, are happy to see that the aliens are indeed gone. Graham grabs the TV because Americans really are a bunch of couch potatoes, and it�s been way too long since they�ve watched TV, and they�ve already missed a few episodes of �Friends�. Off the reflection of the TV, we see that Merman has carried Morgan up in its arms, only to spray some white gas from the same place that Spider-Man delivers his white spidey action (get your mind out of the gutter). Graham then recollects some insignificant thing that his wife said, something almost as insignificant as my driving instructor�s line (I bet you can�t even remember it now). To think I was actually thinking that the wife had an affair with Merrill. Who? Merrill. Remember him? And it all falls into place. There are glasses of water all over the place, meticulously placed by Bo, because she really is a thirsty girl, and they had no time to watch the glasses, and glasses are in endless supply at that house, �cos apparently that�s all they ever received in gifts. And more significantly, when the aliens broke into the house, damaging thick pieces of wood, barreling through boards that have been nailed shut, this wind of action apparently didn�t get to the glasses, even though they were so precariously placed all over the place. Graham then grabs a glass, flings it somewhat at Merman, and it starts to disintegrate really poorly. I mean, I�ve seen better special effects on �Buffy�, and I�m sure this film�s budget is at least 20 times bigger than an episode of �Buffy�. Can we talk about Sarah Michelle Gellar now? No? Damn. So it all falls into place. Graham gets Merrill to grab his baseball bat and �swing away� at the glasses. The alien dissolves away, and it turns out that Morgan�s asthma actually SAVED him!! Wow! Okay, let�s re-assess. Supposedly everything falls into place. Graham�s wife died for a reason, because of that really insignificant line (I�ve forgotten already) she uttered before she died. Now, so the planets allegedly align to spare the lives of the remaining members of the family. Bo is a crazy girl, who needs to see a psychiatrist because she just won�t drink the water. She�s also a brat, leaving glasses all over the place � I mean, did the wife�s death have something to do with that too? Did she turn bratty and spoiled because mama wasn�t there to wash up anymore? Morgan has asthma so he didn�t breathe in Merman�s poison. Yeah, because asthmatics don�t breathe. Whatever. And Merrill is practically some baseball legend. Oh, but how difficult is it to use a baseball bat to swing away at glasses at short distance? Does it really take a baseball great to do that? Is the alien standing somewhere beyond third base? Happy ending. Graham goes back to the ministry, no longer blaming God for his wife�s death. His faith has been restored. My faith in Shyamalan is all gone. For Graham, he wasn�t reading the information signs from the time his wife died. For me, I didn�t read the warning signs not to watch this movie. I owe my driving instructor an apology. R.D.�s Ratings : This really was bad. The entire mythology of crop circles was shredded to bits, and made to look ridiculous. It�s little more than a bad HOT DAWG. [What�s a HOT DAWG? Check out R.D.�s ratings system here.] Sound off!! What did the signs beep to you? Did you buy a baby monitor after the movie? How crazy was Bo, exactly? When the batteries in your torch run out, how violently do YOU hit it, on a scale of 1 to 10? Tell me here. |