Blu-ray Review: Signs
Published May 29, 2008
Signs is a movie with a heavy identity crisis. Everything, from the ending to the build-up to its tone, is all over the place. There’s a great movie here that doesn’t quite reach its full potential.
Mel Gibson plays a former preacher and farmer with two kids. When crop circles show up in his fields, he plays it off as a hoax. These scenes are handled perfectly, building a sense of fear early on and engaging the audience.
In fact, many scenes carry this same style. M. Night Shyamalan’s static, well framed direction is consistently well done and unique. He lingers on shots until they’re no longer effective for their needs and moves on.
The mystery, key to nearly all of Shyamalan’s films, is crafted as well as the tension. Brief glimpses of news reports serve their purpose to provide the proper amount of information to the viewer before being cut off. As with Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, the clues are there, though not completely noticeable in some cases.
While the film spends much of its running time building up suspense and terror, there’s an odd humorous side to Signs that feels completely out of place. It’s funny, and the lighthearted humor is delivered properly. Quite simply though, it doesn’t belong here. This isn’t some massive summer blockbuster where quirky tones are the norm. This is trying to be multiple genres at once, and they clash with each other constantly.
Then of course there’s the ending, or the payoff if you will. While the effects are more than admirable, the concepts are not. The idea that aliens would invade the most water-filled planet in the galaxy is beyond stupid when the secret is revealed, and to assume the entire world went under attack so one man can find his calling is even more ridiculous.
Signs may not be as awful as The Village. There’s credit due for the intensity of the build-up and care taken to create a believable invasion scenario. Where the film falters is trying to believe there’s something more to it, but it can’t even take itself seriously. How is the audience supposed to? 
Signs has a shaky Blu-ray debut. Up close, the transfer performs admirably. Detail is remarkable, and the sharpness remains steady. In longer shots, it takes on an overly filtered look, muddy and lacking definition. Flesh tones tend to waver, and some edge enhancement is noticeable. Black levels are beautiful for their depth. 
The audio is hardly a disappointment. While bass is at a premium (no scenes particularly need it), the use of surrounds to enhance the on screen action is flawless. The opening scene noticeably captures the movement of cornstalks while dogs bark in every channel. The separation is each channel is absolute perfection. Later scenes, especially when the aliens enter the farm house, are equally stunning. 
Signs carries over the Vista Series DVD extras. Four deleted scenes are decent additions if you’re a fan of the film and run a little over seven minutes. Making Signs is a six part documentary on the film. This is a detailed and superb behind-the-scenes piece, offering insight into every aspect of the movie. Multi-angle storyboards and another one of Shyamalan’s early films (as with all of this DVD releases) round off the special features. 
Matt Paprocki is the former reviews editor for Digital Press, a video game website with an appreciation for the retro side of the industry. The deep game collection which spans nearly 30 systems and 2,000 games line his walls for research purposes. Matt strives to bring credibility to video game journalism, and take it in a new direction to aid the industry in becoming respected with all forms entertainment media. He currently freelances for GameArgus.com and MultiPlayerGames.com.
![Signs [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51GOrjEFH-L._SY90_.jpg "Signs [Blu-ray]")
- Blu-ray Review: Signs
- Published: May 29, 2008
- Type: Review
- Section: Video
- Filed Under: Video: Blu-ray, Video: SF, Video: Suspense and Mystery
- Part of a feature: The Wild Blu Yonder
- Writer: Matt Paprocki
- Matt Paprocki's BC Writer page
- Matt Paprocki's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
"Considering that this film came out a few years ago, I find it interesting to see the critique at this time"
The Blu-ray is just coming out.
"The idea that aliens would invade the most water-filled planet in the galaxy is beyond stupid when the secret is revealed, and to assume the entire world went under attack so one man can find his calling is even more ridiculous."
Considering they were walking around without any sort of protection that must mean the aliens needed an atmosphere like Earth's. What other planet in the galaxy would fit that bill?
You presume that the aliens knew they had a weakness to water. Was there a scene that established that?
Did the world go under attack so one man could find his calling or could it be that one man found his calling while the world was under attack?
"Considering they were walking around without any sort of protection that must mean the aliens needed an atmosphere like Earth's. What other planet in the galaxy would fit that bill?"
So if they come from a planet like Earth, one would think that their planet had water and they knew it was an issue. If you have the tech to fly around the galaxy, wouldn't you look for a planet with less than 70% water cover?
"You presume that the aliens knew they had a weakness to water. Was there a scene that established that?"
See above. Their planet had to have water if the atmosphere was like ours. Also, if they have the intelligence to build ships that fly around the galaxy, they sure as hell knew what they were vunerable to.
"Did the world go under attack so one man could find his calling or could it be that one man found his calling while the world was under attack?"
Could go either way, but the way it plays out in terms of the script, Mel Gibson's character is told everything happens for a reason and everything in the script pertains to that. The baseball bat, the kids water issues, the accident, etc. It all surrounds him. So yeah, I have no issue saying the alien invasion was purposeful to push him back into preaching.
Movie character transformations are pretty standard stuff. There's some dire situation, and we watch how people react. This often involves love affairs, parent-child relationships, attitudes about how a life should be lived, and so on. So, I don't see that Matt's criticism is valid on that count.
On the other hand, Matt is correct about the aliens. The idea that we could somehow fend off an alien attack is also standard Hollywood fare, and a typical sci-fi theme for novels, as well. If an alien species capable of interstellar travel wanted to wipe us out, they could. It's absurd to think that we would stand any kind of chance. Civilization would simply be annihilated from orbit. It would take about 90 minutes (or less). But that wouldn't make for a very interesting movie.
Hollywood injects barely plausible plot devices to give us a fighting chance. In Signs, we see the same plot device used as in War of the Worlds --- there is something native to our planet that is toxic to the alien biology. It's laughable to think that the aliens, seeing 70% coverage of the surface with something (apparently) unknown to them, would not have been investigated prior to landing. Even we lowly humans do that. It is also likely that an advanced spacefaring civilization would have encountered water somewhere in their travels. Water is a simple molecule and would have been known to any technological civilization.
But it's just a movie. We're not supposed to think about these things. At least it wasn't as dumb as Independence Day, where Jeff Goldblum and his laptop outsmart the aliens. Ha f**king ha.
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Considering that this film came out a few years ago, I find it interesting to see the critique at this time. My family and I view this film quite often as we find it highly entertaining. When we first saw it, I went grocery shopping shortly after. When I entered my home with the groceries, all four of my kids were sitting on the sofa with pointed tin-foil hats on their heads, and I laughed so hard that I cried.