Salocin

Signs - You have been warned

This is a terrible film. Those 106 minutes could be spent doing something productive like talking to a loved one, starting your first novel or staring at slowly drying paint.

First let me say that I thought both The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were excellent films, intelligently written and sensitively directed.

Signs isn't. It has almost no story, no meaningful character, mundane direction and underwhelming performances.

I don't want to give anything away for those of you foolish enough, as I was, to invest the time and money in this film so I won't go into huge detail. Suffice to say that there is no pay off for the story. Underlying it is a central tragedy with such genuine potential emotional depth that it's use as superficial character bio is demeaning. On top of that, there is an overwhelming sense that more interesting things are happening elsewhere in the world.

Mel Gibson tones his performance down as Bruce Willis did in the two previous films but to much less effect. Joaquim Phoenix is undoubtedly a fine actor but he is totally wasted here. The two children give fine naturalistic performances though and this does seem to be a talent of Shyamalan's. If only someone would tell him that Hitchcockian cameo's are fine but that he is no actor. He gives himself a part of undue significance which fatally undermines critical scenes.

Then again, that may explain why his mind wasn't on the directing. The film is an incoherent mess of other people's visual cliches with nothing thematic to tie it together.

Much of the writing is painfully on the nose, with characters blurting out each others pasts with regularity. It would have been slightly more subtle to simply hold up a big red card saying 'Exposition - Please pay attention'.

A quick summary then ... this movie is one of the biggest disappointments I can remember and poses serious questions about F Night Shyamalan's long-term future as a filmmaker, so devoid is it of ideas. Avoid at all costs, but if you should watch it, remember, You Were Warned!