If we should really keep this short, really pin it down to essentials, Signs is an invasion from space as experienced from the inside of a cellar. Or a well-crafted suspense movie about a guy regaining his faith. We can even call it a grown-up variation of Shyamalan's earlier movie Wide Awake but with aliens. But let's not do that. Because I don't know here. I don't know about Mel Gibson. He puts in a very good emotional performance here, maybe even one of his best, but he feels misplaced nontheless. He just isn't well suited for the part of a broodering ex-priest. I was also a little disappointed that there wasn't done more with the crop-circles. They just pop up and suddenly it's an alien invasion. Otherwise Signs proves once again that director Shyamalan is in complete control of his craft as long as he sticks to it. He builds the suspense with a sure and steady hand from frame one and he never let his audience loose until the last. But he also show how limited and wobbly he can be when trying to infuse other elements into his characteristic style, like ill-executed comedy. Some of the comic relief on display work because of the two marvellous child actors (Breslin and Culkin) and especially because of Joaquin Phoenix, other times it's misplaced and distracting. All of this is mere trifles, though, most of the time Signs is an intelligent first class spook-movie way ahead of most of its contemporary competition. It's part Birds, part Night of the Living Dead and part Close Encounters, all done in the same less-is-more style as Sixth Sense. Only really in the last scene does it become too corny as Shyamalan decide to show one last standing alien in its full glory. It's a shame we have just spend 90 minutes of jolting, nailbiting and claustrophobic suspense only to find out that the visitor from space still look like a guy in a rubber suit.

© The Inzomniac's Movie Madness Review.