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Created May 14, 2012 11:52PM PST • Edited Mar 23, 2013 02:16AM PST

1. Quality

2. Summary

   Great 4.0

   M. Night Shyamalan peaked with Signs. Wonderfully creepy and magnificently manipulative, it’s a self-consciously old-school scary movie. Even this non-horror fan enjoyed it.

   Mel Gibson’s Muted Max performance anchors writer-director Shyamalan’s achingly heavy story. Leading a great cast that includes Shyamalan himself, Mel proves the value of a great star, especially in a film told as much through glances as dialog.

   Signs will either give you nightmares or cure them, given how ultimately silly it is. Still, an exquisitely performed and consummately constructed scary movie is a certain cinematic joy.

   Finally, a review of Signs shouldn’t end without giving a shout out to Jeff from Jeff, Who Lives at Home, who considered Shyamalan’s magnum opus his guiding light. OK then.

4. Acting

   Great 4.0

   Mel Gibson’s soberly accomplished performance as a fallen Episcopalian priest carries the movie. Recovering from tragedy and faced with unfathomable threats to home and family, he struggles but never capitulates, which is what we expect from great movie-stars. And Mel is a great movie-star. He may be a reprehensible whack-job in real life, but he’s great onscreen.

   Joaquin Phoenix also quietly impresses as his laid-back yet studly younger brother.

   Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin prove themselves terrific child stars as Mel’s kids, vital roles both. Just 13 and 8 when the movie was made, they never make a false move.

   Three strong supporting players round out the great cast.

   • Cherry Jones as the local Sheriff and family friend. The future POTUS on 24 sure has an interesting charisma about her.
   • M. Night Shyamalan himself as a befuddled neighbor.
   • Patricia Kalember as a strong wife and mother.

5. Male Stars Great 4.0

6. Female Stars Great 4.0

7. Female Costars Great 4.0

8. Male Costars Great 4.0

10. Film

    Great 4.0

    One suspects that both Steven Spielberg and Orson Welles would approve of Shyamalan’s magnum opus. Said to idolize the former, M. Night certainly takes Steven’s “Don’t show the shark” lesson to the max, which works here just as it did in Jaws. Of the latter, War of the Worlds is Signs’ obvious antecedent.

11. Direction Great 4.0

    Perhaps most impressive is how this stately movie has no shoe leather (i.e., superfluous shots), though it walks several miles in dramatic slo-mo.

12. Play Great 4.0

    The problems of four crazy people are made to be worth a hill of beans in this intensely personal story.

13. Music Very Good 3.5

14. Visuals Very Good 3.5

    Five puppeteers, four Intruder Doubles and a pair of Stunt Intruders are notable in the FX crew.

15. Content

16. Edge

    Risqué 1.7

    Old school — lots of dread without lots of dead.

17. Sex Innocent 1.2

18. Violence Fierce 1.9

19. Rudeness Salty 2.0

21. Reality

    Supernatural 3.7

    Crop circles get their Hollywood closeup in Signs.

22. Circumstantial Surreal 3.0

23. Biological Supernatural 4.0

24. Physical Fantasy 4.1