Signs (2002) review

Disillusioned Mel Gibson and his family (including Joaquin Phoenix, playing his brother) suspect supernatural forces are at play outside their yard and in the world itself (everyone's glued to the television set in an eerie post 9/11 fashion, waiting for the worst). Cleverly uses humor to keep from becoming too austere and morose like Road to Perdition - it's about nothing less than one man's spiritual crisis (which, by the way, has to be the topic of the year) - though the deliberate pace compromises all potential effectiveness. The ending is unfathomably awful (the entire ending, too: we shouldn't forget about the trapped-in-the-cellar bit a la Arachnophobia), and I'd as soon not 'see' 'anything' (the inclusion of the alien is just for the general audience, but looks junky).