Rating: 
Summary: Great fun
Review: I have, almost against my will, turned into a big M. Night Shyamalan fan. Anyone who gets as much hype as he has gets a healthy dose of skepticism from me. However, "Sixth Sense" and now "Signs" have won me over.The mood and atmosphere of this movie are remarkable. By portraying world-shaking events from the perspective of a single, damaged-yet-strong family, Shyamalan personalizes the story for us and gives us a unique view. By not showing us very much of the invaders, he manages to scare our pants off when he does. More to that point - the first glimpse of the visitors is one of the most startling things I've ever seen and was the point where both the movie and the director earned my admiration. What a great bit of film-making! Both Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix demonstrate that they are fine actors. They are both entirely believable in their roles, which are a big departure for both of them. The supporting cast is good, if unremarkable. The director makes a brief appearance. He does a fine job of acting the part, but physically seems out of place in small-town America. Perhaps that's a bit un-PC, but it sorta jumped off the screen at me. All in all, "Signs" is a lot of fun. I'm not ready to call Shyamalan "The Next Spielberg", but I am looking forward to his next effort.
Rating: 
Summary: Take care in choosing this movie
Review: This is the first -- and only movie thus far -- to ever try blending science fiction with religion. Whether or not it succeeds is highly subjective, and is hard to recommend for this very reason. If you're primarily interested in sci-fi, you'll hate 'Signs'. If you're somewhat of a religious person, you'll love the movie. Be careful before you make the choice of watching it. A SPOILER: It does have some scary moments for the sci-fi lovers and thrill-seekers, but the ending is purely a religious one.
Rating:
Summary: A fan
Review: I am a fan of M. Night, so I saw this film many times. Very scary and surprisingly hilarious. Do you believe in aliens? You should see this film.
Rating:
Summary: The Moose Hole - 'Signs' of Great Things to Come
Review: The Summer of 2002 has not been a generally good time for Touchstone Pictures or Walt Disney Studios in general. Bad Company, which starred Anthony Hopkins and Chris Rock, and The Country Bears flopped at the box office while Reign of Fire barely recouped its moderate $60 million production budget. So it is no surprise that they are hoping that their last film of the summer finishes the season better then the previously mentioned films had started. Director M. Night Shyamalan has been described by many as the next Spielberg and for good reason. The Sixth Sense became one of the biggest surprises of 1999 when the film grossed nearly $300 million domestically on a relatively small $40 million production budget. His second film, Unbreakable, was met with less success at the box office but acquired a cult following when the film became available on DVD. Disney is obviously hoping that Signs will bring about Sixth Sense-like success or will this show the decline of rising director's prosperity? The story focuses on a man named Graham Hess, a former minister, and his family as the world faces a major conflict. Graham is the father of two children who lives on a farm just outside the city of Philadelphia along with his brother, Merrill, a former minor league baseball player. A car accident that took the life of his wife causes Graham to lose his faith and makes him question the ways of the world. One morning, he discovers a crop circle that has appeared in his corn fields. At first he dismisses the crop circle as a prank and nothing more. But soon news from around the world shows that these crop circles are appearing all over the world and in greater numbers then pranksters could ever create in a short amount of time. Soon mysterious lights begin to appear in the sky over major cities around the world. Everything that we had feared about life from other worlds is coming true and an invasion by these alien life forms appears imminent. Graham must now find the faith within himself in order to save the lives of his family. The story, which written by Shyamalan himself, is done magnificently. Humor is mixed with intense plot in well placed areas where it is needed the most. The length of the plot does not seem too long nor too short which is so rare in most movies today. The cast of Signs is very well put together. Mel Gibson, who has starred in such successful films as Braveheart, What Women Want, and Lethal Weapon, is sure to have another huge hit on his hands with Signs. Gibson does a wonderful job with the crucial role of Graham Hess. He shows a great range of emotions throughout the film and one of the best examples of this is the scene involving the last supper with his family before the aliens invade. Joaquin Phoenix, who is probably best know for his role in the Academy Award winning Gladiator, is a great surprise as Graham's brother Merrill. His character adds well needed humor in certain places within the course of the film. Some child actors in films seem too cute and can often ruin the effect of a film but the children in Signs don't do that. Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin are perfect in their roles and make the audience both laugh and cry. M. Night Shyamalan, who made a cameo appearance in The Sixth Sense, takes on the role of the man who killed Graham's wife in a car accident, which shows that his genius goes beyond directing and writing. Overall, Signs spells out another huge success for the rising director M. Night Shyamalan as well as for actor Mel Gibson. This is clearly the best film of 2002 and one the best films in recent memory. The aliens are not seen fully until the end of the feature but Shyamalan is the only director in the movie industry today that can scare the heck out of an audience with just noises. The musical score by James Newton Howard is one of the biggest highlights of the film. Howard, who scored such films as The Sixth Sense, Dinosaur, and Atlantis: The Lost Empire, out does himself with the brilliantly exciting score from the opening credits till the conclusion of the film. There are so many wonderful things to say about this film that any negative comments seem trivial. Though the ending to Signs does seem a bit cheesy that is the effect that Shyamalan is trying to get across. Much of the film is a slight parody of the old 1950's B-movies like Invasion of the Body Snatchers and the film does come off as a bit of tribute to those films. But Shyamalan makes the film his own and does so with excellent flare and style. Signs is sure to remain one of the best films of the year and everyone should make it their duty to see this film at least once. You never know when life from other worlds may visit. You would like to be prepared, wouldn't you?
Rating: 
Summary: Not very good
Review: Out of the three films Shyamalan has made, this is the worst. He's a little young to be throwing his name up on every movie he makes now. It's not like he's Spielburg. The Sixth Sense was a great film, but he simply doesn't have the credit to be trying to use his name to throw up on every film in order to express how good it is. Since the Sixth Sense his films have been progressively getting worse. "Unbreakable" was decent, but nowhere near as intelligent as his first film. And casting himself in the movie, albeit in a small part, was a mistake. He's acting like he's Hitchcock all of a sudden. Signs was entertaining, but not something I would have enjoyed in the theater, and not something I'd be interested in seeing again. The plot was a bit broken up, and you couldn't really understand the central theme. Was this a film about a man who loses his faith, or aliens taking over the world? I was looking forward to this film because of the director, and because of my fascination with crop circles, which didn't really have much to do with the actual movie. I suppose it's a decent film if you're bored and want to rent it one night, but don't expect any of the great plot twists like you see in The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable. Hopefully, Shyamalan will get back on track with his next project.
Rating:
Summary: Notice
Review: I already wrote a review for this movie and gave in a 5-star rating. Appearently only about 2 of 9 people found my review helpful... Well I just wanted to add that I found out AFTER watching the movie and writing my review that Roger Ebert gave this movie 4-stars and refers to this as a "masterpiece". And I think Roger Ebert is a little more qualified to review this movie by some of the people of this site.
Rating:
Summary: Good Ideas with Average Applications
Review: If you're looking to curl up in front of your television with a semi-scary, suspenseful movie that allows you to sit in the dark and be completely absorbed, this is not the movie for you. Like the Sixth Sense, the director seems compelled to make the viewer think about what they are watching, and that's not a bad thing at all. However, the previews for this movie lead one to believe this is just some fun fluff that won't arouse any sincere emotion, and that's just not the case. I went to see this movie in the theater with my girlfriend, and after it was over, both of us were just staring at the credits, scratching our heads and saying, "Huh?" The acting is very well done, the cinematography is first rate, and there are some very genuine scares, but on the whole, this movie is just too complex and provocative to be utterly enjoyable. Make no mistake, this movie is definitely worth seeing, but it's nothing like what ads purport it to be.
Rating:
Summary: Fine thriller that's paradoxically subtle AND heavyhanded
Review: This alien invasion film, the third in M. Night Shyamalan's run of supernatural films with horror overtones has inspired some of the most mixed of all his reviews, both with the press and the public. Shyamalan plays upon his Hitchcockian influences very much here, and on the plus side this allows for the film (like THE OTHERS, another superior horror film from the last few years) to play more on suggestion and long takes and suspense rather than on cheap thrills. The music and cinematography are superb, and some of the sequences are nothing short of magnificent: the sequence with the Brazilian children's birthday party is one of the scariest (and most beautifully paced) uses of mise en scene with a handhold camera ever done. And the performances from Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix are exceptional, even from both these actors. The film has several glaring weaknesses, to be sure. The largest are its plot holes: the ineptitude of the aliens is pretty remarkable, considering their sophisticated technology, and even a young child will laugh at the silliness of their One Big Weakness. The religious themes of the film also become heavyhanded, especially in the film's gratuitous and poorly faced final scene. Finally, the pointed homages to "The Birds" also become just a bit too much in the sequence towards the end in the cellar (you keep expecting Tippi hedren to show up down there with the family). This is an effective chiller , and stays with you, but next time we can only hope Shyamalan has some second thoughts about his more heavyhanded devices. Instead of a director's commentary for the DVD Shyamalan opted to make an extended multipart documentary with himself narrating: while in many ways this is very engaging (it's impossible not to like him as a personality), it seems a bit ego-serving as well, and doesn't tell you as much as a director's commentary would have (it seems too cheaply self- promotional).
Rating: 
Summary: A complete bomb!
Review: There is so much that's bad about this movie that I would need much more space than is provided here. Thus, I'll keep my comments brief and focus on the major flaws.
First, of course, is the utilization of crop circles as a film subject. As crop circles are proven hoaxes (this is general knowledge now; see Sagan and others for complete details), Shyamalan does the viewer and the scientific community a diservice by appealing to the film's circle manifestations as alien constructions. How could the original pranksters have known that their hoaxes would eventually be "authentically" replicated? The coincidental effect is that the viewer is left laughing at the whole premise.
Second, the editing of this film is horrible with scenario segments not following each other in an increasingly suspenseful fashion. Thus, when a new scene appears the viewer is left to yawn through another long drawn-out scene (the effect is one of boredom and this film suffers incredibly from this problem). In effect, the general difficulty is the pacing of the film.
Third, the acting is wooden and entirely inappropriate at points. The worst offender is Culkin who just does not act like a real boy. He acts far too grown-up for his age. In some respects the same can be for the daughter.
Fourth, there is the comedic factor. At times, characters do not seem real (the recruiting officer for instance). If this is Shyamalan's attempt to add comedy to the proceedings, he falls flat on his face. There are, of course, more flaws, but I'll stop here. Viewers have now been warned.
Rating: 
Summary: How to kill an alien: just add water
Review: No, I am not "missing the point." So this isn't a movie about aliens. That's pretty obvious. I don't see how anyone could miss that if they wanted to. Believe me, I wish I had missed it. The movie might then have been a notch less unenjoyable for me. The truth is it seemed like I was sitting in a church instead of a movie theater. I felt like I was being preached at. I went to see this movie for two reasons. (1) I like Mel Gibson, and (2) I think crop circles are kinda spiffy. I wasn't expecting to get a sermon on how if only everyone would have faith in the Christian God, all their troubles would vanish into thin air. Quite honestly the movie's point could have been made with just about anything else thrown in in place of the aliens and had the exact same effect - a blizzard, a war, whatever. And maybe if they'd made the movie a little more believable and with a few less logical holes, I wouldn't have minded the preachiness so much. As many others have pointed out, why would beings that can't tolerate water go to a planet that IS mostly water? They could have been vanquished with water pistols or a light rainfall. The human body is mostly water, too, so why would they "harvest" humans as a resource? The acting was passable. The dialogue was fairly good and there were some funny moments. I thought Mel performed his part pretty well. But even he couldn't carry a movie as bogus as this one. So if you want a good Mel Gibson movie, rent Maverick, Braveheart, or The Patriot instead. If you want an alien invasion movie, rent Independence Day. If you want a sermon, go to a church. This movie doesn't cut it.
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