Rating: Summary: can you be scared out of your faith? Review: Mel Gibson is Graham, a reverend turned farmer who has found crop circles in his corn in Pennsylvania. It turns out that similar circles have been found throughout the world and they are being used as navigational signs for aliens to land, and they are hostile. Graham is a widower with two small children and a brother who is an ex professional baseball player. Turns out that Merrill, the brother, just swang to hard at every single pitch. His young daughter Bo is finicky about her drinking water, which might be post-traumatic stress disorder from her mother dying. As the movie progresses, we learn how she died, it is pretty terrible, the stuff of which urban legends are made. Graham loses much of his faith after losing his wife. When the aliens land less than 5 miles from the farm, he feels his faith slipping even more as he struggles to protect his family. This is well-done, chilling and imaginative, as we can expect from M. Night Shyamalan (of "The Sixth Sense" fame). It will keep you on the edge of your seat!
Rating: Summary: suspensfull Review: From M. Night Shyamalan, the writer/directer of "The Sixth Sense" and "Unbreakable, comes the story of the Hess family in Bucks Country, Pensyvania, who wake up one morning to find a five hundred-foot crop circle in their backyard. Graham Hayes (Played by Mel Gibson) and his family are told that extraterrestrials are responsible for the crop circle in their field. They watch, with growing dread, the news of crop circles being found all over the world. Signs is the emotianal story of one family on the farm as they encounter the terrifying last moments of life as the world is being invaded. It is easy for a film maker to blow up the world, but Shyamalan does it much riskier. He tries to blow our minds up with this amazing movie that i think you will all enjoy very much.
Rating: Summary: "plot" does not equal "drama" Review: There's a not-well-respected genre called the "shaggy God" story, of which "Star Trek V" is one. "Signs" is another. It's a numbingly dumb film, in which the ending was conceived first, then the "plot" constructed to force the desired ending. ("My Cousin Vinnie" has the same lame construction.) This rather negates the philosophical and metaphysical debates at the center of the film. How can you have a meaningful discussion about man's relationship with God, when the writer/director is _playing_ God? Mel's performance is okay, I guess, but he persists in interpreting "confused" or "upset" as "loony." He adores the Three Stooges, and too much of that adoration informs his performances (qv, "Maverick"). The worst of M. Night's three films and the last, I hope, until he comes up a story idea as good as "The Sixth Sense."
Rating: Summary: Only because I haven't seen the DVD.... Review: I saw the movie in the theater and, to borrow from Keanu Reeves and Joey Lawrence, "WHOA!!" I LOVED this movie, and poo-poo on all youse guys who say otherwise. This movie scared the stuffing out of me, and they only showed the alien for like five seconds! It was brilliant! And to whoever it was that said "I liked seeing Night do Sci Fi", 'ello! Where have YOU been?!? His other movies WERE Sci Fi! Sorry, I'm a little ranty right at the moment. I just loved this movie and I'm seeing many people mercilessly panning it and these are probably the people who liked the Matrix sequels. You should all grovel at the feet of M. Night Shyamalan. He's a genius. Kay, bye.
Rating: Summary: Go have fun with it... Review: ... this movie is fun. Yes, there are plot-holes and somethings seem a bit unrealistic, but all-in-all the movie is a fun ride that teeters between tension and humor. It was very fun to watch.
Rating: Summary: Overhyped and disappointing Review: This movie is neither scary nor has much of any plot. I didn't find myself interested in the outcome of the characters. The only reason it may have done will at the box office must be due to the hype surrounding the director and the movie. The director's need to star in the film was annoying and just an excuse to make a bigger name for himself. Another reviewer's comparisons to Hitchcock is laughable. Skip this movie.
Rating: Summary: plot twists, well executed, humorous scenes & warm hearted. Review: This movie doesn't follow the usual scraped formulas. This movie had me fooled, and that's not easy to do. There are so many cookie cutter movies out there, but this one is original. This was an excellent movie that I watched twice at the movie theater. A must see, especially if you like alien suspense/horror. As for the negative reviews, I just think that they intolerant of any religious expression. Mel's character undergoes religious doubts & confusion over his wife's death: that's all.
Rating: Summary: If you have a "not to see" list, this should be at the top Review: Take several really talented actors, put them in a story with no point, and you have Signs. I can't believe others have rated this movie so highly. I was terribly disappointed, since there was so much hype surrounding the previews. The ending was so poor as to be pitiful and silly, but by the time I finally got there, I was pretty much expecting the worst. If I had not been a captive audience on a long distance flight from Europe, and had already watched everything else available, I would not have sat thru until the end.
Rating: Summary: Creepy, but flawed. Review: With the creation of "The Sixth Sense" M. Night Shyamalan single-handedly brought back the genre of the psychological thriller. With "Signs" there is a focus and deliberate pace to Shyamalan's newest thriller. His understanding of how to manipulate an audience through sound effects, music, and cinematography is inspiring in a time of flash over substance, gore over suspense. The acting is first rate. The children actors are excellent, Mel Gibson delivers another solid performance, and the highly under-appreciated Joaquin Phoenix shines. But the true star of the film is the director, M. Night Shyamalan. He has a small acting role in the film, which he pulls off decently, but his direction is inspiring. On the DVD version he says he was influenced by three films in particular: "The Birds," with its layers of psychological confusion, "Night of the Living Dead," with its atmosphere of strangling claustrophobia, and "Invasion of the Body Snatchers," where there is a focus on a very few individuals dealing with an unthinkable crisis. This is a good film with more subtlety and nuance than most, and an admirable nod should go to Mr. Shyamalan for a solid return to form. However, the glaring plot flaws are sometimes just too ridiculous to accept. These aliens are able to disappear at will within their ships, but they have a hard time getting into a weakly defended cellar? By the end of the film, however, I was able to ignore that flaw and other less significant ones, and I did enjoy the movie. Later.
Rating: Summary: "I want his intestines on a stick!" Review: This is the biggest belly-flop we've seen in a long time. As metaphor for losing faith, it's not real clear, full of coded references to "believing" and "ancient methods". As science fiction, it's full of logical holes--not good in a world where viewers are increasingly sophisticated regarding what alien "greys" should look like and how their biology works. What is all this medical nonsense about his son's lungs "being closed" making him immune to "poison dust", and his wife still alive and talking calmly despite being "cut in two" by a moving truck? "Night" also seems to have gotten several particulars wrong regarding US life and Western religious culture, while promoting the thoroughly discredited "crop circle" phenomenon as "something that makes ya think". Fortunately, perhaps as substitutionary revenge, we will get to see Gibson make a similar socio-religious nosedive later this year with "The Passion".
|