Signs will have its admirers since its methodic nature suggests there's something profound going on beneath the surface. There really isn't though.
Comment
07/31/02
Signs (2002)
74
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:218
Fresh:161
Rotten:57
Average Rating:6.8/10
Consensus: With Signs, Shyamalan proves once again an expert at building suspense and giving audiences the chills.
Runtime: 1 hr 46 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Synopsis: It's contaminated. That's what pint-sized Bo (Abigail Breslin) says about every glass of water that she tries to drink, then rejects. This is just one in a long list of strange occurrences that are... [More]
Starring: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Reviews for Signs
201 - 220 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
Shyamalan has a distinctive talent for finding surprising new approaches to familiar film genres that once seemed sucked dry of the capacity for surprise.
07/31/02
An intense and intelligent horror picture ... If you have trouble sleeping later, don't say that I didn't warn you.
07/31/02
It's easy for a filmmaker to blow up the world -- but what Shyamalan does is much riskier. He tries to blow our minds.
07/31/02
From the opening credits, dominated by an intriguing score by James Newton Howard, Signs draws you in, holding you in expectation as Shyamalan peels his story as leisurely as if he were paring an apple.
07/31/02
Uncommonly stylish but equally silly...the picture fails to generate much suspense, nor does it ask searching enough questions to justify its pretensions.
07/31/02
The result is a film that sags between its night sequences. The only comparison I can think of is a “Jaws” without a story between shark attacks.
07/31/02
Artfully directed and well-conceived, but fails to locate and maintain a consistent tone.
07/31/02
You'll forget there's anything but an edge to your seat.
07/31/02
Yet no matter how unsatisfying the sci-fi denouement, Signs' title bout remains stark raving Mel vs. the Lord Almighty God. And it's a close one.
07/31/02
A remarkably engaging technical masterwork.
07/30/02
It has that rare quality of being able to creep the living hell out of you...
07/30/02
The film's opening and closing title cards seem to say as much about Father Graham's return to the cloth as it does about the size of the director's ego.
07/30/02
Tense and creepy...Shyamalan's strongest paranormal thriller to date.
07/30/02
Conceptually brilliant...Plays like a living-room War Of The Worlds, gaining most of its unsettling force from the suggested and the unknown.
07/30/02
Shyamalan starts off with [an] existing mystery, but he can’t solve it.
07/30/02
M. Night Shyamalan knows what scares us.
07/30/02
The last 10 minutes are so misguided and goofy, it's hard to believe they were made by the same people who did the rest of the film.
07/29/02
A truly chilling movie.
07/29/02
Top CriticSigns is art-house Night of the Living Dead. There's a point where Mel tells his brother to "swing." Too bad it can't be at the end of a rope.
07/26/02
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