trog's haus

Signs is the latest title from the acclaimed writer (and now director), M. Night Shyamalan. Acclaimed, that is, by seemingly everyone except me. I’m yet to see a Shyamalan movie that I’ve really enjoyed, even though two of them starred Bruce Willis. Signs looked pretty cool from the previews – a spooky atmosphere combined with some sci-fi (aliens) elements.

Before I begin, I should mention that this review contains plot spoilers. I normally avoid this as much as possible, but I hated this movie so much that everything I can do to stop people from seeing it, I will.

Signs stars Mel Gibson, who rates slightly below Bruce on my favourite actors list. Also appearing is Joaquin Phoenix, the evil Emporer in Gladiator, as well as one of the ubiquitous and interchangable Culkin kids, Rory. In what I thought was a fairly spectacular display of bad taste, Shyamalan also makes an appearance.

Basically, the story is thus: Gibson stars as a disillusioned preacher type who has lost all his faith when his wife was killed in a car accident (by Shyamalan). He is now a farmer, living with his brother, Phoenix, and his son and daughter. One day, he discovers big crop circles in his fields. This goes on for a while with several eerie incidents, until eventually the aliens appear.

Now, if I’d read that before seeing the movie, I would have been all like “awesome, that sounds mad, aliens and stuff”, or words to that effect. Initially, I was intrigued by the movie – it starts out fairly well and the suspense is built up pretty well. Big savage German shephards barking, creepy scenes walking through tall corn, and Mel Gibson generally being entertaining – at first, I was keeping pretty happy.

Then, the aliens arive around Earth, and there’s all these flying saucers. People start panicking, the usual stuff. Then they invade and start killing people. Now, this is a story in its own – I would have been happy to fork the plot off at this point and just watch Independence Day again, but Shyamalan is too good for such petty schlock, so it then becomes a movie with a theme, about destiny and faith.

Now, personally, I’ve got nothing against movies about destiny and faith. They’re interesting things, and people have woven interesting tales around them in the past. However, Shyamalan has taken his tale and intertwined it with a story about aliens, which really pissed me off – I wanted to see aliens doing strange and spooky things. However, what we’re treated to is aliens that are so incredibly lame and pathetic, that – despite their ability to cross interstellar distances, jump 30 feet straight into their air, and to carve crop circles into fields – can’t get through a wooden barricade. Oh, also, the aliens are severely allergic to water, which begs the question: why come to Earth?

Anyway. The people that like soppy rubbish about destiny and fate might be able to look past the shoddy vessel for the themes in this particular movie. For me, this movie tapered off into nothingness around the halfway mark. It does the usual Shyamalan trademark story twist, so if that is all you’re in it for, you’ll have a blast. However, if you’re expecting anything about aliens, Mel Gibson kicking ass, or indeed anything even remotely interesting and engaging, forget it.

Again, I will confess I haven’t liked any of Shyamalan’s other films. Sixth Sense was too slow and boring, and Unbreakable had so much potential, but it was just wasted with a boring ending. Obviously, I’m expecting all these movies to turn into action movies, and hating them because they don’t. To me, every single one of them is just busting at the seems with impending action – you’ve got your action heroes, plots which are bulding with potential violence… and then the next second, it is all over with a bit of social commentary or some weak twist. Anyway, that’s just me.