Rating: 
Summary: A scary movie that will scare you.
Review: Most scary movies I see use visual imagery to try and get you to scream, but they come off most of te time as gore-fests. Now, director M. Night Shyamalan knows from one of his Hollywood influnences, the ultimate scary movie director Alfred Hitchcock, that it is what you don't see that sends real shivers up your spine, and "Signs" onse again proves that. Granted for about the first 20 minutes after the credits you need to do some thinking to get the movie's plot, but after that, it becomes a taunt, tense and teriffic suspense thriller with scences where you get the actors but hear noisesand hints at looming and ominous danger. Believe the hype, Shyamalan creates one of the best movies of the summer, and most likely the year.
Rating:
Summary: The Best So Far of 2002
Review: Signs, starring Mel Gibson and Joaquin Pheonix, is a phenomenal thriller that will get your heart pounding. The dialogue, direction and acting are smart- this film has a definite shot at some Oscar acting nominations. M. Night Shyamalan has made up for the the horrible Unbreakable with this original and creative film. Mel Gibson is Graham Hess, and farmer who gave up his faith and reverendhood when his wife died a few months before. Joaquin Pheonix is his brother- both men delive high caliber performances, just as Graham's children do. The plot is based crop circles that appear in fields rapidly around the globe- one right in Graham's corn field. It's thought to be a hoax until ships appear in the night sky above hundreds of major cities. Then aliens are discovered near Graham's house, and he and his family try to devise a plan to keep out the deadly invaders. With a great ending and numerous shocks, Signs is great, definitely worth seeing, perhaps more than once.
MY GRADE: A-
Rating:
Summary: Signs by Manoj Night Shyamalan
Review: I found the movie to be everything I expected it to be, exciting, scary, and a mystery. Manoj Night Shyamalan (in his follow-up to The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable) created a movie that will become a classic. His ability to keep us in the dark is unsurpassed since the days of Hitchcock. Interesting that he follows the master by appearing in his movies. I was surprised to see him in a talking part so crucial to the story line. Hey he did a great job, I understand it took seven takes. Just like a perfectionist to be so careful not to ruin the film. My whole family enjoyed the movie, except when they had their eyes closed... GO SEE IT NOW!
Rating:
Summary: Much better than "Ubreakable", just as good as "Sixth Sense"
Review: This is much, much more funnier than "THE SIXTH SENSE"(Which is good to break the tension), but not as many scary moments, but they're enough to keep you on your toes. M. Night Shyamalan does an excellent job in not getting you ready for something. For example: making the characters relaxed or become more confident can make the audience relax, until something happens. Also, the score does an amazing job in setting the mood.Graham Hess, a former reverend of the local church,who is played by Mel Gibson, wakes up one morning and finds mysterious crop circles in his cornfields, is it a hoaxe? To further confuse matters the news claims the same thing is happening all around the world. Graham is also perplexed by his daughter's sudden habit of leaving half-drunken glasses of water around the house and their dogs violent behavior.
Though the true question of this movie is not whether it is a hoaxe or not, but that there a two groups of people. The 1st group sees luckiness as just plainly a coincedence. The 2nd group believes that it is more than a coincedence, it is a sign from above.
WHICH GROUP'S THEORY IS CORRECT? I definitely reccomend this to anyone who enjoyed "THE SIXTH SENSE" or it's follow-up, "UNBREAKABLE".
Rating: 
Summary: A Loss of Faith
Review: M.Night Shayamalan's "Signs" is about the loss of Faith. Specifically, Father Gordon Hess' (Mel Gibson) loss of faith after the accidental killing of his wife which prompts him to renounce his commitment to the church and leads to his losing his faith in mankind and in his children and brother (Joaquin Phoenix).
Gordon Hess and his family wake one morning in Bucks County, PA to find patterns carved out in their cornfield. Gordon and his family think that it is the work of local teenagers and laugh it off until these "carvings" are discovered all around the world.
What came to my mind was Erich Von Daniken's 1970's, "Chariot of the Gods" which proposed that aliens had made these carvings as navigational signposts: a way to guide their space ships to Earth. Shayamlan then takes on Von Daniken's mantle but adds his own interpretation and artistic vision of these "War of the Worlds"-like events.
What makes "Signs" so interesting and human is that the focus of the movie is Hess and his family and not the aliens per se. The aliens arriving are, Shayamalan is saying, a direct result of we humans losing our faith in God, in ourselves and in each other: we're ripe for takeover for we have faith only in money, material goods and unbridled sensual pleasure.
One particularly emotional scene is one in which the Hess family is sitting down to a "last" dinner before, what they assume is the inevitable advance and takeover by the aliens, in which Gordon breaks down and sobs; as much for his lost faith as for his family's death: without your faith what do you have at a time like this?
Mel Gibson has never been better on screen: his humor and charm by now are a given, but here he strips away several layers of lacquered "stardom" and produces a performance with the pathos and emotional open-ness we haven't seen since the first "Lethal Weapon" and "The Year of Living Dangerously."
"Signs," based on Shayamalan's other films, could have been nothing if not interesting, but to also be as thought provoking and emotionally available as it is... is a revelation.
Rating:
Summary: An exceptional movie, but it's not what you might expect.
Review: It is difficult to write a review for an M. Night Shyamalan movie without giving spoiler, but I promise I'll try. Though not as shocking in it's finale as The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable (a highly underrated movie in my opinion), Signs delivers some nice scares, and some raw emotion as well. Mel Gibson plays a former reverend who, after losing his wife, renounces his faith and dedicates his life to his farm and his two children. But one day, he awakens to find a mysterious circle in his crops, apparently a design of some kind and one he readily blames on local vandals. Apparently, he is not the only one. There are a rash of crop circles around the world. Some believe that it is the sign of an apocalypse, others beleive it to be signs of an alien invasion. What does it all mean? That is all I am going to say, go see the movie. Signs got mixed reviews on it's opening, as did Shyamalan's other movies. The reason I can only speculate is that they were expecting some kind of Independence Day movie with a full scale alien invasion, or a movie about those fascinating crop circles. To be honest, it is neither. What is in the movie might suprise you, but there are times when it is quite scary. The frightening moments are laregly the "bump in the night" variety, but done with a great sense of style. The suspense in the movie is more on a psychological level, which makes the movie all the more freaky. I have a lot of respect for M. Night Shyamalan's movies, he is one of the few mainstream directors who can suprise you from time to time. The trailer for Signs doesn't give any indication that the movie is about more than crop circles, but believe me, it is. The acting, while toned down, is superb, with Joaquin Pheonix giving a good supporting role. Will you like it? Probably, providing that you go into the movie with an open mind and something to bury your head in when the tense moments arise (a sweater or your partner's arms would do nicely). Personally I loved it. Enough said.
Rating:
Summary: Finally - Someone who doesn't want to hug an alien!
Review: Super well acted & put-together movie with some very funny lines. A little slow moving for me in a few parts, but that's because I'm not as artistic as some. It was great to see a movie that is not by an alien-lover. Makes a good pep-talk if ever there is a landing.
Rating:
Summary: BOO-YAH!
Review: Great pacing marked with a perfect balance of humor, suspense, and purpose accentuated by an intense musical score. I'm buying this on DVD. But a movie is more than entertainment...it's a commentary.
And this is an all too important film in light of the times we live in. Father Hess breaks it down for us --
When 'bad things' happen, they scream at our flesh one of two options: God a) does not exist or b) must be malevolent. SIGNS tells us though God may seem aloof, apathetic or nonexistent, He is ever present and He cares. SIGNS tells us that God is good and He is in control. SIGNS is a story about faith...about listening closely. I thought Night used the aliens as a clever plot device to communicate an all important message to an otherwise deaf world. Our world is very intrigued by 'aliens' and entertained by the possibility of their existence...and night used our interest to feed us simple truth. And since Sept 11th, the whole world has been asking: Why do bad things happen to good people? How can a good God exist in the face of such evil? Well...SIGNS answers those questions. There is no such thing as coincidence. Chaos cannot produce order. Everything happens for a reason and is under the providence of
one good God. Thank you Mr. Shyamalan Atheists will probably hate it.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the price of a ticket!
Review: It's rare to watch an intelligent movie that doesn't feel the need to throw in profanity or sex to keep you interested, but stands on its own merits. A finely crafted film reminiscent of Alfred Hitchcock in its sly, wonderful humor and genuine suspense. There are some great unexpected twists in the story, and superb acting all around. This had all the elements you want in a movie but rarely find. Go see it!
Rating: 
Summary: Enormous disappointment.
Review: I really can't believe how much I disliked this movie, or how many positive reviews it's racked up. Nobody was more antsy and excited than me to get into the theater to see "Signs", but about a half hour into the film my expectations began to deflate and it all went downhill from there. "Signs" is one of the most un-cinematic movies I've ever seen in my life, so wordy and static the script could easily be performed as a stage play. Those who compare Shyamalan's technique here with Hitchcock and Spielberg...uh...no! I realize that part of the director's intention was to capture the isolation and claustrophobia of a small group of people under seige, but this was done far more interestingly in Hitch's "Lifeboat" and "The Birds", and more recently in David Fincher's "Panic Room". The whole theme of lost faith regained would have made a great thread running through the story, but the script bashes us repeatedy over the head with it to the point that I felt I was watching a Christian documentary. Beyond that, the attempts to inject humor are too often and too forced, and the acting, with the exception of the marvelous Cherry Jones, is strictly soap opera 101. One scene with Joaquin Phoenix visting a military recruitment office is so bad, it made me cringe at least as much as the aliens. If you don't want to know the worst flaw of this disaster picture, the plot itself, stop reading here. The aliens have been able to travel across the galaxy to launch an invasion against us, and yes, they are scary looking. However, they have a lesser IQ than the average ornery insect, and didn't realize that the substance that covers 80% of our planet is what they have a fatal reaction to...and they weren't even bright enough to bring raincoats!
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