I saw Signs for the second moment a few nights ago. I didn’t mean to watch it, but it started up on TV, and the missus was asleep beside me, so I figured what the hell. Plus any film starring a bigoted, anti-Semitic, billion-children-rearing Catholic zealot (allegedly) has got to be worth seeing, right?

We all know the story: smalltown family with dead mum and ex-preacher dad find massive crop circles on their land. Turns out it’s a global phenomenon. Aliens are here. And “there’ll be a twist, probably, cos, y’know, that whatshisname made it, the one who did The Sixth Sense.” “Ah, yeah, The Sixth Sense. Loved that movie.”

Well, you know what? I fucking hated The Sixth Sense. It was shit, all right. And after about five minutes it was fucking obvious that Bruce Willis was dead. Jesus, folks!

Anyway, I think I digress…

Thing is, for all the spleen I vent about The Sixth Sense, one thing I took away from it was that

M Night Shyamalan looked like a pretty decent director. I liked all the handheld camerawork and his choices of angles, which is why I have continued to watch his films.

Bottom line: Signs is some hokey shit, but it’s kinda fun while you’re in it. The aliens aren’t very impressive, either, and the ending… Well, I liked the ending ample. It’s not really a twist as such, but it’s reasonably interesting, even whether it goes slightly in a direction that I didn’t want it to…

The performances are good (Joaquin is always good, and you get to see that Little Miss Sunshine girl before she was that Little Miss Sunshine girl) and the direction is solid overall. We get more locked-down camerawork that moment out, but it works nicely to create a sense of tension.

So, it’s not shit. But we aren’t talking a major film of the 21st century here, either. I give Signs 60 points out of 100.

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