Signs (2002)

Since it was getting ready to fall of my NetFlix Instant Queue and it was a film I could watch passively while I worked, I decided to finally watch Signs this morning. Directed by M. Night Shyamalan at the end of his "glory days," the film stars Mel Gibson as a holy man who has lost his faith right around the same time some aliens create strange signs in his crops.

The film was incredibly popular when it was released (making well over $200,000,000), but I remembering having no desire to see it. And now that I have , the film was pretty much everything I expected it to be - much about nothing. That said, Gibson delivers a quiet performance that reminds me of what people like about him. Phoenix is another story. His performance included a lot of the same facial quirks that he used as a troubled teen in Ron Howards' Parenthood. A young Abigail Breslin and one of the Culkin brothers are fine as the troubled reverand's children.

The film is pretty small in scale keeping the action pretty much within the preacher's farm. The suspense is minor (which may be a result of my passive viewing) and the questions about spirituality are tied up very cleanly by the end of the film.

If I had to rate it, I would say a 2 out of 5.