Underrated Movie: Signs

To continue the theme of underrated movies I have chosen to discuss another movie that I love and feel is underrated. The director M. Night Shyamalan gets a very bad deal when it comes to his movies. While the harsh criticism is warranted for his later films his first couple of films are really great movies. His first three movies I believe are great movies and more true of an example of the directors skills. Those three movies are the generally universally loved film The Sixth Sense, The very enjoyable Unbreakable, and my personal favorite of his Signs. I think because The Sixth Sense was such a huge both financially and critically everybody wanted him to top it with his next films. Unbreakable was unable to do that which is why a lot of people don't like the movie. The other complaint about Unbreakable is it's weak ending. I have to agree with that point the ending is a little weak but it still is a great movie. One reason why I like Signs so much is that it does not have an ending similar to The Sixth Sense or Unbreakable. In both of those films the director used his now signature twist endings. In Signs there is no real twist ending like the other two films. In Signs it's all about the characters and how they react to the situations they are in. Unlike in The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable were everything is done and built up to this one twist ending that you do not expect. While it worked in The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable it definitely has become a bad trend with his movies because after Signs just about everyone of his movies are made for a twist ending. It is so common that the twist endings of his movies were rendered useless because almost everyone was expecting a twist ending. I think it is because of these expectations that people have for his films that made Signs be pushed into the underrated category instead of the great movie category where it belongs next to The Sixth Sense. Why I feel that more people should like this movie is it is just an all around good film. The film has great performances from all it's actors. A very well written story that works and accomplishes what it set out to. It has a very good score that is reminiscent of a more classic style thriller. Lastly it just is a very effective thriller that is thrilling until the end and it does not rely on a twist ending.

When it first came out I don't think it would have been considered an underrated movie because it make quite a lot of money at the box office, one of the highest grossing movies of 2002, and it did pretty well critically better then Unbreakable but not as high as The Sixth Sense. So with those factors one would not really consider it a underrated movie but I feel since it's release it has been moved to the underrated category. Not a lot of people talk about it and when people think of M. Night's movies they always say that The Sixth Sense is his only good movie. So because of that it is underrated. I like it a lot more then The Sixth Sense so I recommend everyone to see it.