I went to see the movie, Signs, today. I had some significant problems with this movie. Some of my problems revolve around some pretty big spoilers, so if you haven’t seen it yet, you may not want to click to see more.
OK, so first let’s get the obvious metaphors and surface messages out of the way. The biggest one clearly is that somebody out there is looking out for us, and we need merely believe and have faith. Fair enough. Supporting this, you have water which is clearly intended to suggest baptism, and given the effect on the aliens, they must represent sin or evil. If we have faith in God, then through baptism we can be saved from sin and evil. And, no matter how many curves and problems life sends at us, it’s all part of God’s plan. Not really the movie I went hoping to see, but OK – whatever.
Now for the problems. Chiefly, I don’t think the movie ever really established the aliens as malicious. We have a guy on the radio or TV saying that they were here to gas us and harvest us, and we have the one at the end that does seem to gas the kid, but that’s really it. Maybe I’m too relativistic, but that’s not really enough for me. Who knows if the guy on the radio was right, and even if he was, the alien only gases the kid after it’s attacked. It had already had its fingers sliced off – not out of line then that it should be cautious and want to protect itself. Who knows if maybe the gas was intended to cure the kid’s asthma? I don’t.
By contrast, the humans are clearly acting out with fear-based violence. I don’t find them to be sympathetic characters at all. It’s very much a swing first ask questions later kind of thing. The vet (and was that the director by the way?) locks one of them up in his pantry. Gibson cuts the poor thing’s fingers off, and his brother swings away with his bat in a kill it now, sort it out later rage that was jarringly violent compared to the rest of the film where most things were really happening off camera. I came away feeling sorry for the aliens, so I have to ask myself was it the fault of the film maker for not establishing the aliens’ malevolence, or is it the intention of the film maker? Is this film really pro-christian, or is it anti-christian? Certainly, anybody who has a problem with religion can see the worst of it played out in this movie. They’re different from us, so they must be bad. Don’t get to know them or give them a chance to prove you wrong. Certainly don’t turn the other cheek. Just make your assumptions, give in to your fears and kill them.
Normally, Shyamalan is a pretty good director, but in this one, whether it was supposed to be pro-christian or anti-christian, he’s clearly asleep at the wheel. This movie just didn’t know what it wanted to be and throughout the thing I found myself board and completely detached. One minute it’s trying to be funny and ironic, the next minute it’s trying to create this sustained creepy mood that Shyamalan usually does very well, but can’t seem to pull off here.
I almost wonder if the studio forced him to edit out most of the more blatant anti-christian messages that I suspect would have been very negatively received by most of the population – particularly at this time in our country’s history. What you’re left with is a movie that isn’t really what it was intended to be, and can’t really stand on its own. Maybe I’m giving him too much credit. Maybe he really was trying to do a yea god kind of movie or maybe he was just phoning this one in. Whatever the case, this movie really sucked, and I want my $7 back.
What I find most annoying is the critics mostly seemed to like it. I was led to believe that this wasn’t really about aliens and crop circles. I suppose that’s nominally true, but this is still very much a movie about aliens and crop circles. It’s also a completely directionless, floundering mess.
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