Plot Details: This opinion reveals minor details about the movie's plot.

To win me over, "Signs" had a lot to overcome.

First, I was less than enthused about writer/director M. Night Shyamalan's previous two blockbusters. The gimmick ending of "The Sixth Sense" was spoiled for me early on, so I never saw it in theatres. When I did catch it on video just last year, I couldn't be bothered to follow its sullen and rudimentary plot through to the end. And the premise of "Unbreakable" was lost on this non comic book fanatic. Its gimmick ending wasn't spoiled, but by the time it showed up on screen, I was so bored and insulted that it made little difference.

Second, I've never liked Mel Gibson. On screen or off. His aw shucks demeanor and hyper-serious role-playing play on my last nerve every time. If this seems like an ad hominem attack, then so be it. I'm just trying to lay my prejudices out on the table. Anyway, I've seen enough of the "Lethal Weapon" series to know that I don't ever need to see another minute of it. I can't stand him in dramas. Even less so in comedies. The only role he was remotely effective in, to my eyes, was Mad Max. Because, like Keanu in "The Matrix", he didn't have to do a lot of acting; silent stoicism is a great rallying cry for a bad actor.

Third, I have no time for conspiracy theories and believers in aliens. If it happens, if I see aliens on my front lawn, only then will I go running for the shotgun. The universe is vast enough that I believe aliens probably exist; it's just a million-to-one shot that they're coming here.

So to win me over, "Signs" had to utilize its three main features, features that I usually loathe, to make a surprising and engaging film. Low expectations can be a tricky thing, for I found myself won over wholeheartedly by "Signs". That is until the third-time's-a-charm gimmick ending that has become a Shyamalan staple.

"Signs" is a story "like 'War of the Worlds'" as one character self-awarely remarks, told from the macro and micro viewpoint. Not only do mysterious crop circles appear in Gibson's field, but in hundreds of other fields around the world; mainly in India, as television news reports would have us believe. As the possibility of alien invasion grows, television, radio, and an oddly prescient science book are the family's sources of abundant information. The science book offers Shyamalan an opportunity for one of his patented clunky lines of dialogue: "If the aliens invade, it means that everything ever written in science books will be wrong." Of secondary concern, presumably, is the distinct possibility that they'll want to eat your face. No matter. As the story moves along, the global concerns slowly become a MacGuffin, and the local and familial concerns become supreme. The film's focus narrows around Gibson and family and their struggles to comprehend and to survive. It is an effective technique,

The film wastes little time in establishing its mood, and its influences. The credit sequence -- a bold grey background over which is laid a four-story tall font -- is punctuated by a score that will only *not* remind you of Bernard Herrmann's "Psycho" score if you've been deaf from birth. Couple this with Shyamalan's trademark cameo appearance, in a role that carries much of the film's exposition, and you get a good idea who he's trying to ape here (what legendary thriller director, famous for his roly-poly profile, insisted on making small cameos in all his films?). His detractors, eager to label him as a wannabe-Hitchcock, will have a field day gathering evidence to support their claims here. But Shyamalan differs from Hitchcock in at least one significant way: whereas I always found Hitch to be a cold technician, unable to push any other human buttons besides the one labeled "fear", Shyamalan mines a more spiritual side, for better or for worse, in his contemplative films.

In the movie's first shot Gibson bolts upright in bed. If I can give Shyamalan credit for anything in his two previous works it is that the opening shot is always astute and gorgeous. However this time it took me a while to calm myself down after this trip to cliche land. Shyamalan helps by down shifting into his trademark solemnity. The man is unable to shoot a bad-looking movie, helped no doubt by ace "Silence of the Lambs" lensman Tak Fujimoto. His shot composition skills are near-perfect, must notably in the few scenes he arranges so that the camera peers through the farmhouse's window. The effect this has is that the front lawn appears as if it is underwater. A telling image, given where this film is going. And in the film's key moments of fright, genuine enough that I and the people around me in the theatre leaped out of our seats at the exact same time, he tastefully shows only what he has to, leaving any big revelations for later.

Gibson plays priest-turned-farmer Graham Hess, torpedoed into a faithless funk by the death of his wife, who is still charged with being the gatekeeper of the town's morality even though he tells those who still insist on calling him 'Father' to stop. Whenever Gibson put on his priest's collar, in the mishandled flashback sequences, I had a tough time believing him. But when wearing his average Joe jeans and t-shirts his quiet earnestness worked. Burdened by a script that tries to make every spoken line of dialogue weighty enough to crush most mortal men, Gibson does a fine job of lifting with his legs and keeping everything on his shoulders. After the movie was about an hour old, and this is the best compliment I can think of, I forgot that I was watching Mel Gibson "act", and believed in the character he was trying to portray. Not a prodigious performance, but fine enough by Mel's low standards.

Joaquin Phoenix, looking burlier than I've ever seen him, provides much of the film's comic relief. Whenever the film threatens to get bogged down under its weightier and scarier moments, Joaquin shows up to deliver a Merrill Hess moment, which may include a pragmatic take on just who ("nerds… guys in their thirties who can't get girlfriends") is making the crop circles, or a sympathetic -- and cute -- moment involving three Hershey's Kisses-shaped hats. Despite the fact that nearly twenty years separates their ages, Joaquin and Mel are credible brothers, Mel's burdensome perfection offering a yin to Joaquin's ballplayer manque yang.

Abigail Breslin, as young Bo Hess, serves much the same purpose as Phoenix, i.e. deflating the suspense for a moment. Except where Phoenix provided comic relief, Breslin provides what can only be called cute relief. She's an adorable little sprite, with one gear: straight-faced charm. But it's a gear that you can't help giggling at whenever the little tyke is on screen. At one particularly suspenseful point Gibson tells her the story of her birth. All the women in the room squealed when she emerged from the womb, simultaneously exclaiming that she was the cutest baby they'd ever seen. It's a touching moment, given credibility only because Breslin is the kind of cute little girl that would elicit such a reaction.

Rory Culkin, so good as the innocent young son in "You Can Count Me", nearly crumbles under the weight of his character's precociousness. Culkin does little more than stare pointedly at the adults around him, as if he is their peer. It's a testament to this little man's skill as an actor that his Morgan Hess doesn't crumble under the weight Shyamalan shovels on him.

The denouement doesn't reveal just one secret, like "The Sixth Sense" or "Unbreakable"; it reveals many. But with less effect. If one had been paying attention all along, to repeated motifs and curious bits of exposition, the ending can be easily anticipated. But it's not about the secrets that are revealed; it's about the realization that these secrets prompt from the characters. The audience is never given a grand epiphany; they must empathize with the characters for the "gimmick" ending to work. I think this kind of "gimmick" storytelling has run its course, though. If Shyamalan doesn't trust that his stories are intrinsically interesting, so much so that he must throw in a twist ending as bait for audiences, than he'll burn out pretty quickly as a filmmaker. He's got strong skills, and when he learns to trust them throughout, he'll finally make great movies.

The epilogue reminded me a lot of the feeling I get, as a non-Christian, every December. As Christmas rolls slowly towards us, and those who participate insist to those who don't that it's really a secular holiday, I feel more and more isolated by the good cheer and merriment seemingly had by everyone else but me. "Signs" makes the same assumption, that you in the audience will see Gibson's final choice as a happy ending, never concerning itself with that fact that you may find it less than ideal. Still, if you let the hyper-spirituality slide, and take "Signs" for what it is -- a rip-roaring ghost story that only shows you what you need to see -- it's a most enjoyable experience.

Recommended: Yes