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Signs (Vista Series)

Signs (Vista Series)

List Price: $14.99
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Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Really dissapointed
Review: I received bad reviews about this movie. However, as a sci-fi fan, I thought it may deserve a view... I was wrong.

Shyamalan has a undeniable hability to create tension in his films. In "The sixth sense" the ending is what makes the movie most remarkable. He was unable to repeat that trick in "Unbreakable", with a forgetable ending. However in "Signs" the ending makes this movie just infamous.

Turning from a religion/moral dilemma to just another tale about big, bad, scary, vengative, irrational, humanoid monsters invading earth. The only memory it can evoke is that of those B class sci-fi movies of the fifties.

I really thought that no one will have the nerve to do one more after Tim Burton's "Mars Attacks". That should have put a final point to the genre. Sadly, Shyamalan didn't think so.

I's obvious that Shyamalan was not trying to pay homage to those films, he was trying to do something else, who knows what?

I give it two stars because Gibson and Phoenix gave good performances.

I'll be a spoiler because the ending is so bad it deserves so.

CAUTION: MOVIE SPOILING AHEAD!!

You don't have to be a cientist to spoil this movie. Water-melting aliens roaming nude in a rainy planet? Come on! I'm starting to believe that "The sixth sense" was just a lucky strike.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Great movie in all aspects
Review: M. Night Shyamalan at his best. This tops even The Sixth Sense as Night's supernatural thrillers just keep getting better. In the movie there are many important messages about faith. Mel Gibson plays one of his typical rolls and has a stellar performance.

The film took place on a farm out in Pennsylvania. The scenery and filming is beautiful with great aerial and reflection shots. There were lots of very suspenseful scenes, and some humor thrown in a couple times. Joaquin Phoenix steals the show with a performance even better than his in Gladiator. The overall plat involves Mel Gibson's wife dying and him questioning his faith. Then there begins to be sightings of Crop circle including one on his family's yard. then they begin to attack, and the best part is that they show the TV stations so you really think that they are attacking. Night pulls of an ending even better than the sixth sense and everything pulls together.

I think that the title of the movie can account for the two main plot strands of the movie; one being the signs that he will regain his faith and his wife didn't die for nothing, the other being that of the Crop Signs.
Overall, it is probably in my top ten movies of all time.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Intelligent Filmgoers Beware
Review: I just wrote a lengthy review trying to explain how bad this movie is, but I realized I can condense it to this: Try to imagine a movie premised upon the notion that a super-advanced race that arrives upon our planet really wants nothing more than to beat us up and suck out the life essence from our bodies. Yes, I'm talking about full nelsons, headlocks, and busting down our doors with their bare hands. I kid you not. Our mental superiors roam around like a pack of Hell's Angels and clobber everyone they can get their mitts on - and I'm not talking about mass extermination here, but fistfights. Now extrapolate and imagine how good a film like this could possibly be.

If you were intrigued by the scary promos that ran when this movie came out, they represent the ONLY highlights of the film. With all due respect to the others who have reviewed this film, to compare it to the excellent "The Sixth Sense" is ridiculous. This is one of the worst movies I've ever seen. And yes, I "got" this film. I got that no one involved with the film even tried to make a good movie. It is bad in EVERY respect, especially the acting and story development.

My advice: do not buy, rent, or even watch this film.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: What's it's all about...
Review: I watched this movie for the first time on DVD and was really bored with it and often wondered what all the hoopla was about. But the movie did draw me in and I stayed with it because I had to find out what was going to happen.

The last ten or so minutes of the film is worth all the time that went before. To see this movie as a SciFi film or a Horror movie is to miss what it is about. It's a powerful allegory. Perhaps seeing so much of Mel discussing The Passion made it easier for me to realize - but this is not a movie to be taken literally. The water is not a gimmick - it's a symbol. The aliens aren't a gimmick - they are symbolic of the problems one faces when one has lost faith.

I will watch this movie over again a few times, I'm sure, looking for the symbols/signs I missed the first time.

What I thought would be the worst movie I've ever seen has turned into one of the most haunting and rewarding.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: M. Night Shyamalan's Atypical Religious/Sci-Fi Pic
Review: M. Night Shyamalan has been hailed as the next Spielberg with such writing/directing/producing credits as The Sixth Sense, Unbreakable, Signs & his new venture, The Village, and rightly so, in my humble opinion. This film is generally unlike The Sixth Sense & Unbreakable. That is precisely why Signs received mixed reviews from critics at the box office.

Mel Gibson stars as the newly widowed ex-reverend/father Graham Ness. Along with his younger, ex-baseball hero brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) and two young children, son, Morgan and little daughter, Bo (Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin), the recently faithless ex-minister & his family experience accidents, death, crop circles, extra-terrestrials, and much more while director/writer/ producer Shyamalan pursues a spookfest with great (thank you, H.G. Wells) "War of the Worlds" undertones.

While the whole Ness clan re-evaluates their spiritual past, present and uncertain future, Graham & Merrill debate/discuss what kind of people they really were while growing up, what kind of people they are now and what the experience that they go through in the film makes them out to be in the end. There are many a spiritual idea/moral to this odd story by Shyamalan & certainly worth a look-see. Does the Ness family perceive a phenomenal occurrence as a series of spiritual signs and heavenly portents, or do they only believe in fate, chance, luck and divine providence?

Watch this oddly, extraordinary film and find out for yourself.

Happy Watching!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Watch the sky
Review: Signs is by far the most likeable, and worthwhile alien film ever made. It had more of a plot than any other movie with Aliens in it has. It sure dominates "It came from the sky", and beats "The day the earth stood still", but I have to admit, both of those were pretty good for their times. This one sort of left the aliens in the shadows until it really needed to bring them out, and reveal their true nature. Then again, that's the purpose behind M. Night Shyamalans genius.

Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) is living a pretty strange life after his wfie is killed in a mysterious car accident, but it is now the present time 6 months later. His children (Rory Culkin, and Abigail Breslin) are like robots. His little girl, Bo, only drinking half a glass of water then saying it's contaminated. His brother of very few words (Joaquin Phoenix) tries to help by moving in with him, but maybe it's only making things worse. The matter changes when a mysterious crop circle appears in their corn fields. One day later, over 50 crop circles appear all over India. It seems that someone is trying to prove a point by playing this perfectly exicuted prank, but the problem doesn't stop there. 14 aircraft lights appear, and hover right above Mexico city, Graham has two close encounters with the "visitors", chopping ones fingers off, and each day, more and more people find the strange creatures wandering around their homes. Time may be running out for earth if the humans don't hurry up and figure out what to do.

The acting in this one was great. The DVD was certainly entertaining escpecially with the deleted scenes. I always like to see DVD's with special features like that. Even M. Night Shyamalans first scary movie that he ever made when he was a kid. Definetelty a movie to pass up. It's out of this world!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: disappointing
Review: After watching and enjoying so many of the films that Mel Gibson has been in, this film turned out to be a disappointment for me. Maybe it was that the part that Mel played was out of character for him or maybe it was because the story was just a little out of kilter, I don't know. I do know that it was not as exciting or thrilling as most of his movies. It needed a little bit more of a punch or depth to it. It was okay, but did not leave a lasting impression on me as most of his movies have done.

He has quit being a minister because of the horrific death of his wife and is now raising his children as a single parent with the help of his brother who lives on the farm with him. They find crop circles in their fields and strange things happen to his dogs and his children. They find that the childrens' monitor picks up communications from space aliens and one of the children picks up a book at the store about space aliens and takes it home and begin to study it. They end up being attacked by the aliens, etc. It had the potential of a stupendous thriller but that just does not come to fruition. An okay movie, but not a great one. Enjoy!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: IT'S HAPPENNING
Review: This is one of the most greatest M. Night Shyamalan movie's ever. One of the others that are amazing are UNBREAKABLE which is highly reccomended and THE SIXTH SENSE which is a very suspensful but amazing movie. But anyway SIGNS is awesome and I think every M. Night Shyamaln movie just gets better. He's getting better every movie he makes and this is the beginning of a career of excellent film making.
BUY THE DVD I DON'T CARE IF
YOU'VE SEEN IT
OR NOT

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: E.T. Phone Homeland Security!
Review: You could get more propagandistic and emotionally manipulable than presenting evil aliens who gas helpless asthmatic children and are beaten to death by heroic American farmers with a Louisville Slugger, but - well, then again, I guess you couldn't.

It's horribly contrived, but M. Night Shmyalan's new thriller is at least very well made, and the cast is terrific. Mel Gibson is emotionally moving as an Episcopalian priest who has lost (and regains) his faith. Joaquin Phoenix is likeable as Gibson's kid brother, with strong audience appeal as a good-hearted homeland hero in the face of grave danger from outer space. And Gibson's kids, Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin, are genuinely the most adorable kids you could ever hope to meet. Even the bit players shine, in this movie.

The production itself is gorgeous, though the soundtrack is a bit overdone. Shyamalan maintains a healthy sense of humor throughout the otherwise melodramatic plot and proceedings - with such bits as the kids (and then Phoenix) donning aluminum foil hats "to keep the aliens from reading their minds," and Gibson's discomfort at swearing and listening to teenaged girls' absurd and unimportant "confessions" - but where he really excels is in sustaining suspense and menace through tight and claustrophobic shots, dark lighting, suggestively furtive glimpses of the aliens and really unsettling sound effects.

The script, however, has holes and problems: the alien attack (and its anticipation) seem to come virtually out of nowhere, even with an early appearance from the space ships; the aliens are assumed hostile without any explanation as to why, and their motivations are similarly glibly presumed before they've even done anything; the religious subplot is forced and contrived, and its implied "divine sanction" of war is shamelessly propagandistic at a time when America is aggressively selling war ethics; and the method of dispatching the aliens is not only grossly unlikely, but actually rather silly.

Still, Shyamalan does know how to put on a good show, and the actors make it all worthwhile. Signs is no War of the Worlds, but it is enjoyable.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Finding God During the War of the Worlds
Review: This film has what so many movies today lack: it's expertly made, emotionally involving with wonderful performances, and it challenges its audience by telling one story (losing and finding faith) in the framework of another (an alien invasion).

Mel Gibson is superb as the former Father trying to hold on to his family even after his heart has been ripped out. After playing emotionally raw characters from LETHAL WEAPON to HAMLET, he proves he can also nail a devastated, lifeless man overwhelmed by loss.

The extras were very interesting: in the Making Of documentary, it shows how the film commenced shooting on September 11th, 2001 and the director shares his feelings about that and the loss of a family member later in the filming.

A filmmaker definitely worth keeping an eye on.


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