I didn't care for this movie when it first came out, when I saw it on the big screen. I wasn't doing IMDb reviews back then, so I revisit those films prior to fifteen years ago that I might have seen but never commented on. My initial reluctance concerned how the story line veered off from a psychological thriller into a sci-fi flick, without considering the context of 'Father' Graham Ness's (Mel Gibson) insight into his 'two groups of people', who he defined as those who looked at luck or coincidence as confirming either their own hope versus fear. People with hope view coincidence as a sign that someone is watching over them, while those with fear feel that they're out in the world alone and on their own. Graham fell into the second camp, his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) felt comfortable in the first category.

The entire story in my estimation, hinged on the way Graham was scarred by the death of his wife in a senseless accident. Unable to come to grips with any logical reason for that to occur, Graham withdrew from the clerical life and gave up on his belief in a just and loving God. What director Shyamalan tries to do is close the circle on Graham's faith by indulging in 'signs', those little moments and occurrences in a person's life that seem to have no meaning in and of themselves, but when viewed in a larger context, have a way of coming together to resonate in a person's life. So we have 'see', and 'swing away', the two vital elements Graham needed to employ in order to save his son Morgan (Rory Culkin) from the deadly grasp of a vengeful alien being.

Now in terms of a personal sign, I had to get a kick out of little Bo Hess (Abigail Breslin) and her fickle taste in water. There are times my (now ten year old) granddaughter will tell me she doesn't like the water she's about to drink because it 'tastes old', or because it was lying around in a glass for a while. I try to wrap my head around the idea of water tasting 'old' and I can't do it, so I'll have to take her insistence as a means of tapping into some power I'm not aware of. Someday it might come in handy for, I don't know, an alien invasion or something along those lines.

This is a film that is entertaining and was made with the need for fun, amusement, enlightenment and the audience in mind.

This movie was not written like a religious evangelist born-again creed meant to proselytize. It was not full of superstition and religious innuendo.

This was a movie I wanted to like, with its cast and great idea, and also that I loved The Sixth Sense and liked Unbreakable very much. Shyamalan has definitely done worse than this though with The Happening, Lady in the Water and The Last Airbender(I'm watching The Village as we speak and presently it is difficult to judge whether I dislike it or not),but this was a disappointment. Signs does have some good values, such as a genuinely tense first fifty minutes or so, very good cinematography and score and credible turns from Joaquin Pheonix, Abigail Breslin and Rory Culkin.

However, what promise Signs did have is almost completely squandered around the halfway mark. Shyamalan's direction is uneven here, first it's alert and tense and then it became lazy and lethargic. The script has an uneasy mix of cheesy and maudlin, the characters generally are underdeveloped and the story either suffers in the second half from also being underdeveloped or even worse not making much sense.

Although Mel Gibson has done worse performances than this I found his performance rather laboured here, doesn't help that his character doesn't engage or that some of the worst dialogue is with him.

What disappointed me most about Signs was that after such a good start, it is spoilt by scenes that come across as too mawkish and over-sentimental than genuinely poignant, creaky flashbacks that severely undermine the suspense and the truly ludicrously melodramatic ending. Not to mention some glaring and even in some cases unforgivable plot holes, particularly the aliens being killed by water.

All in all, disappointing. I liked the performances, visuals and especially the tense, spooky atmosphere created at the start, but it just got lazy. 4/10 Bethany Cox