Signs (Vista Series)

Rating:
Summary: No punch!
Review: M. Night Shamalyan is trying very hard to repraise his "Sixth Sense" success and once again , has failed. "Signs" is a 2 hour
set up with a few- very few- revelations in between. Mel Gibson and Joaquim are always interesting to watch and they try hard to work with the story- or lack of it- to keep us in our seats, waiting for the "money shot" which takes forever in this film. The director manages to build up suspense with a few good scenes, but there isn't a logical visual or conceptual transition from the crops circles to what happens next. This is a "B" movie with expensive ligthning and 5 star caterers.
The "faith", "alien", "mystery" themes are thrown in like a cat a dog and a mouse in the same room but they just don't get along. Robert Rodriguez would have made a more engaging film with half the budget, I think. M. Night should realize by now that what makes a movie good, is not always the surprise ending, but the whole package. If the story pulls the viewer right in, we could care less about the ending, if it was a thrill.
Better luck next time Mr Night.

Rating:
Summary: Signs
Review: This is movie in search of a plot. While I am big fan of Mel Gibson,
I think is is by far the worse movie he has ever done. It is campy and
poorly executed. Don't waste your time or money on this movie.

Rating:
Summary: Ah Mel, I expected much better...
Review: This movie attempts unsuccessfully to blend a Man vs. Himself theme with a science fiction theme involving aliens. The editting was confusing. Several deleted scenes should never have been deleted as they would have made the movie make more sense. Still others I wonder why they were put in to begin with.

Rating:
Summary: Combines alien invasion and one man's loss of faith?
Review: I'm not averse to directors' taking film genres that we are all familiar with and doing new things with them. That is what M. Night Shyamalan is apparently trying to do in Signs, taking the classical alien invasion film and focussing on how one particular family copes with everybody's worst nightmare. It's an interesting idea, and it worked really well for about the first half of the film. Up until that point, we still do not know what or who is leaving those mysterious crop circles. This creates an almost unbearable atmosphere of suspense, which is heightened by Shyamalan's technical skills as a filmmaker. I nearly jumped out of my seat a few times in the scenes in which Mel Gibson's character is walking through his cornfield at night, including one scene in which he catches a glimpse of something out of the corner of his eye. This is the kind of stuff that I was expecting when I paid for my ticket. But then the film gets all messy. First we have an appearance by Shyamalan himself that is absolutely mystifying and seemingly unrelated to the whole plot. In another scene, Gibson's family watches recorded footage on television of an alien walking past terrified schoolchildren in Brazil. The scene is admittedly creepy to say the least, but it has the unsavory consequence of removing most of the suspense from the film. Now we know exactly who is leaving the crop circles; it doesn't really help that Shyamalan's aliens are incredibly unoriginal, indeed like something out of the original Star Trek series. After that, things kind of fall apart. This becomes especially acute when Shyamalan injects his typical spiritual conundrum into the plot, as we learn that Mel Gibson's character is a former priest who lost his faith after his wife was killed in a traffic accident. And unsurprisingly, after we learn this, much of the rest of the film revolves around Gibson regaining his faith in time to save his family. Just exactly what the connection is between Gibson's born again status and his family's survival is uncertain in the film, but the implication is that the former led to the latter. But ignoring the unsuitability of adding this dimension to the plot, the whole logic of Gibson's transformation is even stranger. Remember, his wife's death made him lose his faith; this is obviously a horrible tragedy for anyone to deal with, maybe the worst, but as a Christian Gibson's character would logically be consoled with the knowledge that his wife is in a better place and that he will see her again someday. Now, an alien invasion occurs. Rather than intensifying Gibson's disbelief, as his wife's death did, this unimaginable occurrence causes him to regain his faith. Wow! Maybe I'm being too picky, though. More unforgiveable is Shyamalan's attitude toward the whole plot. He seems to presume that his deep spirituality absolves him from having to come up with an interesting plot resolution. That is the only explanation that I can think of for the ending. It is simply too unconvincing and indeed absurd to be taken seriously. I won't say anymore on that. For me, the half-dozen or so terrifying scenes in the first half of the movie did not make up for the disappointing finale. I was not frightened once in the last hour, only irritated. I'm through with Shyamalan.

Rating:
Summary: Flawed ...
Review: There are a ton of elements in the film-making process that M Night seems to be extremely gifted in. Camera-work, generating atmosphere, lighting, set design, he's outstanding with; maybe the best since Hitchcock (as some people have implied). Unfortunately for 'Signs', concise story-telling dosen't seem to be one of them.
There are a couple of real issues with the plot of this movie that needed to be addressed before this movie was released. For example, the ending was similar to 'War of the Worlds', but the hook dosen't make any sense. Why would aliens with a certain weakness want to invade a planet covered by so much of it?
At one point a stat is given about Joaquin Phoenix's home run record. Does anybody appreciate how far that home run would be? It would be the longest in history.
It was little points like this that were just killing the experience for me ....
On a positive note, I'm originally from Bucks County where most of the movie was shot, it was a blast being able to pick out all the places I've been to before.

Rating:
Summary: Cure for Insomnia...
Review: Here we go again. Another snoozer from the most overrated film maker of the last decade. Three strikes and you're out. After watching his first two stink bombs I was being very fair in giving his third a chance and yaaawwwwnn..... is about all I can say. I literally fell asleep. The only reason I give this two stars is the darling performance of Abigail Breslin.

Rating:
Summary: LaLaLa
Review: M. Night Shyamalan (in his follow-up to The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable) favors atmospheric tension over explanatory plotting. That makes this film successful. Just watch this one alone in the dark!

Rating:
Summary: The best alien invasion flick
Review: The 6th Sense stunk and so did Unbreakable. Both failed to scare, entertain, or even keep me awake for that matter. Both of those were major dissappointments, but this I liked. While those had a better story, this was far more original and exciting, not to mention intense! This scared everyone in the theatre when we went to see it. Heck some people left screaming! I've never seen that since The Ring and The Exorcist. This isn't as scary as those films, but it's scarier than 6th Sense or Unbreakable. Signs had what neither 6th Sense or Unbreakable had SCARES and SUSPENSE! Anyone who said that this wasn't scary is full of [junk]!Anyone who said this movie was boring, is full of [junk], and anyone who liked The 6th Sense and Unbreakable is full of [junk]! Signs is a definate must see for horror fans! 5 Stars definately! WARNING: The atmosphere of this film is intense!

Rating:
Summary: Signs, signs everywhere are signs.....
Review: This movie was a disappointment. I heard much hype of how "thilling" of a movie it was and scary. Not so in either case. This movie's plot is not plausible. Now, now, the aliens COULD invade, I'm not saying that. I'm saying who in their right minds would decide to stay in an isolated home, miles from anywhere, and "wait" for the invasion to happen? Who? I would go for the safety in numbers theory if I were in their shoes. Also, there really is a slight build-up, but the climax is anti-climatic. Mel Gibson stars only to give it a "big name". His performance is average.

Rating:
Summary: LOVED IT!
Review: This is a GREAT movie! I could kick myself for waiting so long to see it. It's the first movie in a long time that has had me scared. This is the first and ONLY decent movie about aliens. The only thing I didn't like was the aliens are big and scary looking but they are push overs. A little kid can beat one up. But everything leading up to that is very scary.