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Today's Attitude:


[Washed-up Critic]


'Signs' vs 'The One'
[WARNING!!! Spoilers below! - Read no further or be spoiled.]

I must admit that I would have gone my whole life without seeing 'Signs' with Mel Gibson, but Anna, The Jelly Pinched Wolf, Kiki (et al.) expressed some feelings about it, so I was curious. While we were down at the local corporate money-sucking outlet, Blockbuster Video, Goof Troop Ag and I were hungry for a couple of movies. From the hype, I had figured that 'Signs' would be an incredible movie and that whatever I picked for the second movie would not be as good.

I had put off renting Jet Li's martial arts movie entitled 'The One' because I was always aiming at other favorites when I went on a renting spree. However, last weekend, GTA and I grabbed one of two copies from the shelf and rented it along with 'Signs'. We watched the two movies and came to a horrible realization - we must have horribly different tastes than the rest of the world. This is something I used to tell myself on a regular basis to keep me from jumping on band-wagons, but actually experiencing my reaction to each movie, it slapped me in the face how different I must freaking be.

GTA was tired, so I put in the Jet Li movie first, assuming we would watch 'Signs' on Sunday. As I got sucked into the movie's mystique, I found some of it correlating to my personal world-view and there was some suspension of disbelief, but cool scifi otherwise - nothing I couldn't get past to be entertained. GTA started to wake up and was pulled in just as I was, entertained by this scifi martial arts movie and were thoroughly entertained. Admittedly, it was not quite 'Indiana Jones', of course, but in my mind it was on the order of at least a '5th Element' or 'Cube'. We both saw where some other genre's were borrowed/stolen/included but were still impressed by new ideas explored. We were both very surprised that we liked it. We did not get around to watching 'Signs' until Saturday, before Easter.

In preparation for this movie, GTA grabbed my arm, expecting the movie to be dark and scary. The beginning of the movie was certainly eerie and looked a bit like a Speilberg mixed with Stephen King, but as the movie continued, suspension of disbelief became a bit thick. GTA and I both have independently explored the 'phenomenon' of crop circles, so we were not affected by that at all - in fact, we were laughing and cracking jokes (I came up with a few witty ones,, I wish I could remember them now).

We did have some shivers. I had the Sony sound-system maxed out and I think the scariest part of the movie was the dog barking shortly before he is killed by the child. The hand coming out from under the pantry door was good too. Other than that, I felt the movie lacked any real emotion. The 'mystical christian' references were thick, but handlable, but I felt like the plot of the movie was a bit contrived. The 'miracle' idea was similar to that in 'Pulp Fiction' which I liked, the way it was done in 'Pulp Fiction' but not as much in 'Signs'. The 'predictions' made by the wife in her final moments were interesting but rushed... I was waiting for inspiration or emotions to well up in me, but none came only disappointment. It had the same scifi effect on my subconscious mind as 'Mission to Mars' - ok special effects, ok scifi/spiritual ideas, ok, ok, ok,, but nothing new, except that the aliens are on a raid instead of attempting to remain and they melt like the Wicked Witch of the West from the 'Wizard of Oz'... "ooo, What a world, what a world.... aaaeeeiiaaaauuuuoooooo!" Let's get out our water-guns and shoot-em-up!...or better yet,, use holy water! - I just couldn't get in the mood.

My (apparently) unpopular opinion would have to be NOT to recommend this movie - to ANYONE. I welcome disagreements - sorry about any offenses that might be taken, but GTA and I were very sorry we spent the $3.50 on renting the movie and, instead, wished we had rented Mel Brooks' "History of the World" again...