Well, At Least This Little Brat's Not In It...

'Unbreakable' (which perhaps should have been named 'Unbelievable'), while not a terrible movie, seemed to fall short on its hyped promise of a stylish mystery and instead turned into a muddled superhero story, complete with overly dramatic lines spoken with straight faces. The twists were good; the hooks were good; the premise was just silly. Enter 'Signs'. This movie unfortunately suffers from many of the things that made 'Unbreakable' a spectacular raspberry.

'You Know This Movie Blows, Right Mel?'

First, it would be fair to say the movie contained several jump-out-of-your-seat moments, some gripping hooks, and much eerie cinematography. Of course, one doesn't have to do much to a corn field to make it seem creepy. Joaquin Phoenix was spectacular in his role as Merrill, playing the failed baseball player with a big heart, and had hand in most of the laugh-out-loud instances in the film. The plot, like the ones of its predecessors, was well constructed and tied things together nicely. However, it was the silliness of those things that made this movie fall short. 'War of the Worlds' this was not. Perhaps more 'Independence Day' at half speed, in a cornfield. To say this movie dragged would be a notable understatement.

Bruce Willis Was Unavailable While
Recovering From Hair Implant Surgery

Mel Gibson, with 'Braveheart' ages past, turns in an overly dramatic showing as a reverend that has lost his faith and left the church. Maybe there weren't enough alter boys in his parish. All tasteless jokes aside, Gibson just seems to try a bit too hard, no pun intended. The cameo by Shyamalan was so bland you sometimes forgot he was still on screen, and talking. And the idea of crop patterns being used as navigational landmarks for aliens seems a bit silly. If our friends can fly light years in sophisticated UFO's and could presumably blow us to smithereens with giant freakin' lasers, why do they need to draw on our corn fields to find their way around our little blue planet?

If Shyamalan had used this formula for a different story, it could very well have been his second opus. But no matter how craftily he hooked the audience, tied seemingly random events together, and pulled you to the edge of your seat, the man just could not convince you to believe. The religious points in this movie seem to trip over one another in forming a rather saccharine and moralistic ending. It seems as if everything should lead up to a twist, but the ending goes careening into predictable expectation. Instead of mystical and intangible villains, we have gruesome and hostile aliens. From his last two movies, Shyamalan seems to be a fan of all those things that make comic-store clerks the stereotypically dateless shut-ins that they are.

For a man speeding down the highway of career suicide, perhaps Shyamalan should stop making movies about it.

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