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Signs (Vista Series)

Signs (Vista Series)

List Price: $14.99
Your Price: $11.24
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Scary and Beautiful
Review: What an amazing movie. I hadn't heard about this from many people, but I wanted to see it anyway. It was scary and shocking in many places. In others it was funny, and poignant. From beginning to end I found this to be a completely satisfying movie experience. Makes me wish I had gone to see it in the theatre!

The casting was top-notch, with heartfelt performances by all. I was most impressed by the young daughter, Bo. I expect to see this actess in the future.

If you buy this movie, you will not regret it.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: So Real...
Review: This isn't the best film of 2002, but it is one of the spookiest films of 2002.
I liked "Sixth Sense". It was great how little objects (the blanket, doorknob, etc.) would be red whenever there was a ghost in the room, and how they filmed it was excellent.
That's what made "Signs" the spookfest it was to me.
On one scene, the camera is sitting on the ground, filming a scene in which Rory Culkin (extremely tallented) and his little sister, drinking water. She has a nervous tick in which she is very observant of her water. She won't drink it if there is a hair, or "amoebas" in it. So she gives some to the dog, the dog jumps up, and tries to attack the little girl. But the scary thing is: All you see is their feet, and all you hear are their voices. You really need to concentrate on what they are saying, because the way they filmed this film doesn't make viewing easy. I consider this film art because of the way it was shot.
As for the aliens, the scariest part of the film had to be when Mel's brother is watching television in the closet, and the news anchor warns us that the following footage may be disturbing. How real is that? Very real.
Many kids running from the backyard during a birthday party. The hedges are shaking. The kids run to the door, screaming in Spanish. They look out the window and wait...then an alien walks by. Everybody screams.
I know this sounds corny, cheesy, and extremely stupid. IT'S THE WAY IT'S FILMED. This scene was shot on a little digital camera. I don't care if the alien was a man in a rubber suit, IT SCARED THE BEGEZUS OUT OF ME!...
Younger audiences may be able to handle this film, simply because they don't understand the film, because it's not what you see, it's what you hear. If you felt weird after watching "Sixth Sense", M. Night S. has got something that will keep you up all night.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Eh.
Review: I bought "Signs" recently, hoping for some kind of emotional impact. Well, I wasn't disappointed at all, there was plenty of emotional resonance going on.... anger that I'd just dropped my hard-earned money on a piece of celluloid ...

Maybe that's a bit strong; the first hour or so of the movie is great, Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix are genuinely good throughout. There are even a few laughs here and there. However, I just didn't feel the movie in my gut like I did with "Unbreakable" and, to a lesser extent, "The Sixth Sense". I thought the whole "losing faith over loss of a loved one" angle was a little overwrought, and it's been done before much better. Around the halfway point, the movie started to pick up again, and there were a handful of good shocks. Then in the last 15 minutes or so, everything went completely out the window. I won't ruin the ending for people who haven't seen it yet, but I thought it bit the hard one. A star for Mel Gibson, a star for Joaquin Phoenix, a star for not completely sucking, and a half star for those funny foil hats. :) ***1/2 out of 5

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: SPOOKY AND UNSETTLING ALMOST TO THE END
Review: "Signs" is the disquieting tale of a former minister (Mel Gibson) and how his faith is tested when aliens invade the earth. This is the sort of paranoic tale that the 50's was so famous for exploiting (Invasion of the Body Snatchers, The Day The Earth Stood Still) and I was surprised, in watching "Signs", at how well such hyper-sensativity holds up. This is one extremely terrifying movie - right up until the very end...and then it all falls apart. Oh, well, most of it scared me silly and, in an age where so little generally does, what more can I say?
Transfer wise: A really good-looking visual experience with rich colors, deep blacks, fine detail (even during the darkest scenes) and exceptional contrast levels. The over all visual experience is generally smooth with edge enhancement only occasionally present. Film grain is also strong at times, but nothing terribly distracting. Audio - a disturbingly potent 5.1 mix that really bumps up the terror level. Extras: a featurette and some audio commentary stuff. Toss away, mostly and not really up to par with the other "Vista Series" extras featured on other discs in this DVD line from Buena Vista.
BOTTOM LINE: Up until the last 15 minutes, this is one frightening thrill ride of a movie - like riding through a funhouse when you're five years old. The transfer is consistent, throughout.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Neither too bad nor too good.
Review: This is not a completely worthless film (it has good characters; wonderful humor; a cool, if not scary, atmosphere most of the time; and a few startling jump scenes), but it could be better. There are some logical flaws (how is it that Morgan got a book whose author knew everything about the aliens, anyway?), and the drinking water bit is just strange. To make matters worse, it enables the viewer to predict the ending, which is a problem in this genre. It was also a big mistake to show the aliens, if you ask me; it gave the film that B-Movie quality which makes the whole thing, not just the humorous parts, seem hilarious.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Signs the movie
Review: Signs is kind of a sci-fi/drama about a family going through a rather difficult time in their lives. If you are looking for a horror movie then you will not like this movie.

THE END

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Phobias brought to life...
Review: This movie actually was more scary to me than The Ring, which I didn't really find scary. One of the most frightening things was having it set in a rural atmosphere near a cornfield. I only had a slight phobia about cornfields and Field of Dreams made me feel better. Nice things are in cornfields...dead but nice baseball players. Not so with Signs! I also pet sit, mostly in the country. Between the animals that go nuts and having things run across the rooftop, this movie hightened a lot of my fears. I thought the child actors were phenomenal. What is it about those McCulkin kids? I definitely recommend this movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Deadpan humor and deadly tense
Review: I hadn't expected to enjoy this movie. As subjects go, this one's been beat to death with aliens that compel us to build giant mounds of dirt, bicycle riding aliens that need help to phone home to asthmatic wheezing old Darth Vader.

As the movie starts out, Mel Gibson gives an effective performance as a man who's lost his wife and a minister who's lost his faith. Very strong performances from Joaquin Phoenix and the children give the film a very strong family orientation.

This isn't a blood-and-guts movie and there's only a few acts of violence committed during the film. Surprisingly, there's very little profanity. Still - the subject matter will certainly upset small children.

I do recommend this for UFO buffs, and perhaps even fans of the Hitchcock film style. This is a dark film, smoothly paced, and very well directed. This is from the director of "The Others", so you should know what to expect.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Was I supposed to be scared?
Review: Because I wasnt. This is not a scary movie. It's pretty annoying and stupid. The characters wear foil on their heads. After watching this and Unbreakable, I'm starting to think Shyamalan has lost his touch. Next time I'll be more cautious.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Excellent and Suspenseful
Review: The plot is interesting enough, though eventually it becomes redolent of "War of the Worlds." Crop circles mysteriously appear over an individual's town, and as it all develops they don't appear to be caused by humans, and the circles appear to be a prelude of something far more terrifying to come.

Mel Gibson plays an excellent and convincing performance for his role, though a few things about his character perhaps should have been explained earlier. For instance, at first glance he appears to be a farmer, yet the sheriff inexplicably calls him "father." For a split-second I started to wonder if the sheriff was actually his daughter (of course, I then quickly remembered the apparent age of the sheriff). As it later turns out he is an ex-pastor who lost faith after his wife died. Ray Culkin is, understandably, reminiscent of a young Macaulay Culkin in several visible ways, except here he plays a character with a far more depressed and solemn attitude. Like what Hitchcock did in his films, M. Night Shyamalan plays a comparatively minor character (try to spot him).

For the most part the characters have an emotionless, quiet and almost lethargic speaking pattern, which creates a mood and atmosphere similar to what one would see in "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable," accentuated further by the lighting and occasional music. The "signs," from which the movie takes its title, are apparently not about the signs of the mysterious forces behind crop circles, but goes beyond that into the fabric of happenings in our daily world and to what it intriguingly suggests. This principle as a plot element is utilized rather well in some of the closing scenes of the movie.

Surprisingly, there are some occasional bits of humor inserted in the movie, though the movie is largely in a spooky suspense genre rather than a hardcore thriller. The first half of the movie is relatively slow moving, to the extent that some may get impatient with the unfolding of the plot (which contains a few holes). Not much happens besides the crop circles, a few sudden scenes that make you jump, and some character development in that first portion of the film. Near the close of the movie, however, things get quite suspenseful and one becomes eager and uncertain as to how things turn out, though a couple of things at the end are predictable in hindsight. The ending skillfully ties several plot elements together beautifully, and the close of it all is fairly satisfying (though I won't say if it's a happy or sad ending). All things considered, it is a good movie for those who don't mind these kinds of movies (sometimes slow moving, suspenseful, and the type of atmosphere that permeates the film). I personally enjoyed it.


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