Signs Reviews (original) (raw)

The work of a born filmmaker, able to summon apprehension out of thin air.

For filmgoers whose idea of a good time is getting the stuffing scared out of them (who are you guys, anyway?), Signs should prove to be time well spent.

This film is just amazing! It is very well crafted. It is definitely one of Shyamalan's best films

Scary, funny, sad, unpredictable, horrifying, creepy, mystifying, and gripping is everything that describes how brilliant this movie is. From start to finish you don't see anything coming. This is one of the scariest movies I have ever seen and one of the best movies I have ever seen!!!!!!!!!!!!! Mel Gibson is fantastic for his role and so is everyone else!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! M. Night Shyamalan has created a masterpiece.

Signs -- though Shyamalan's most visually beautiful work -- seems thinner, barely more than a sketch for a movie, with characters trapped in formulas. Beautifully trapped perhaps -- but paralyzed nonetheless.

It's a high-octane doomsday vision built almost entirely around our sense of anticipation, and that's both its strength and its weakness.

Shyamalan wants to be the metaphysical poet of movies, but he's dangerously close to becoming its O. Henry. The best surprise ending he could give us in his next movie would be no surprise ending at all.

As a scare picture, Signs is good enough. As a religious parable, it's scarier -- and I don't mean that as a compliment.

Sitting through the last reel is significantly less charming than listening to a four-year-old with a taste for exaggeration recount his Halloween trip to the Haunted House.

Frightening, hopeful, and strangely majestic, "Signs" is one of the last best movies of M. Night Shyamalan playing with the audience's expectations every tense step of the proverbial way.

Mel Gibson joins M. Night Shyamalan in hiding away from all sorts of aggressive unpleasantness. The primary threat may be a race of intruding extraterrestrials, but Gibson’s lapsed reverend also dodges the memory of his recently-departed wife, the gaze of the guilt-ridden neighbor responsible, and the crisis of faith that event has stirred in his soul. With two young kids and a lethargic brother along for the ride, Gibson sleepwalks through his day-to-day. His emotions are so drastically compartmentalized, he almost seems autistic. In sealing off his feelings, however, he’s also pushed his family away, alienating each member of the household just when they need to band together. That heaviness isn’t always front and center - in fact, it’s often out of mind entirely - but this doesn’t mean Signs ever really lightens up. Most of the plot’s focus is on the aliens’ influence, both at home (where they cut crop circles and rummage through the cornfields) and on the international stage (where the 24-hour news cycle can’t get enough of their disappearing armada). That’s the more colorful subject, and the one Shyamalan pursues with the most vigor. His take on a global invasion is creepy and curious, a nice blend of looming tension and gradual revelation that’s careful about maintaining its veil of mystery, and its smaller perspective makes for a fresh angle. As Gibson comes around to the idea that this thing is for real, and his family (famously) dons a set of tinfoil hats, they experience much of the unfolding situation through TV and radio. This allows their imaginations to run wild, especially when the aliens show up at their little house to kick doors and break windows. The monsters don’t look great in full frame, which is why it’s so important we catch sight of them in our peripheral or not at all. Signs does well to respect this limitation, to spin it into an advantage, but loses patience and blows it at the very end. The same is true of the religious symbolism that anchors Gibson’s character. For ninety-five percent of its running time, the film effectively toes that line, maintaining a delicate balance before tumbling on its side in the climax. Ah well. A flat ending isn’t the end of the world, but it is a little disappointing.

This movie worked well when it came out but it's not ageing that good. Everytime I see it I find it less good than I thought the time before. It should be an horror movie but it really seems a parody of itself.

Cheesy, wonderful, so-bad-its good brilliance. The acting is absurdly wooden. The script is so hamfisted that it sounds like it was written by an actual ham. The camera work is bizarre. Yet, despite all of that, Signs is charming in that M. Night Shyamalan way. Its not good by any means, but it is enjoyable.

still under production.. Signs Signs is a plot driven horror thriller about a family living on a farm that is shook up after the symphony of horror enters in their house. Despite of being of horror genre, there isn't a single loose thread of thrill for the viewers to root for either the characters or the storyline. The primary reason why it fails to create the anticipated crispy environment is because of its pretentious and shallow characters that the audience never cares about. The characters goes deep in order to draw out the emotions but unfortunately they are still undercooked if not one dimensional. The essential bits that usually antes up the horror and decorates it with long gasping of airs, is the missing puzzle in here. Neither the background score, not the sound effects factors in, addition to that, the art designing is daft and visual effects still under production, which **** out the heat from the asset. Gibson gives few good sequences especially his caring response towards the children whilst unfortunately Phoenix seems distracted and not in his game as his portrayal just doesn't seem palpable to the theme of the feature. Shyamalan's vision in here requires plenty of preparation and in order to do so, he spends his first two acts on building up the structure and when it finally hits on screen the viewers are exhausted and numbed by it to feel electrified by its rendezvous point. Having said that, Shyamalan's execution still delivers few good moments but the audience is never in an awe of it, in the entire course of the feature. The emotional repercussions that the flashback sequence breeds, its simplistic and practical take on something such fictional that offers much personal experience and its final nail biting seen-this-seen-that drama are the high points of the feature. Signs is more pretentious that it claims to be and surfs more than it hopes to be, it's a huge misconception iterated in a horror.

Production Company Touchstone Pictures, Blinding Edge Pictures, The Kennedy/Marshall Company

Release Date Aug 2, 2002

Duration 1 h 46 m

Rating TV-PG

Tagline It's Not Like They Didn't Warn Us.

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