Reviews

I was a sophomore in college when this movie came out and I had never actually seen it until last night. I finally decided to watch it because I like good dancing and because the movie had such cultural impact. After seeing the movie I am completely baffled by how it had any effect other than putting people to sleep.

The story is pretty preposterous when you think about it. Does anyone actually buy the idea that that beer joint full of gnarly old steel-workers and teamsters could keep their clientèle with the high concept dances that those girls were doing? They would have all been over to Zanzibar faster than you can say "performance art". Can you imagine the reaction of the real life versions of that audience to that bizarre TV watching No theater dance thing that she did? Please.

It seems plausible to me that there could be a woman that worked in a steel yard and was also a dancer--after all both are physically demanding jobs. But I didn't buy for a second that THAT girl worked in a steel yard. And I didn't buy for a second that I was looking at a real steel yard. Steel work is dangerous. You don't keep your work area looking like a junk yard and not end up loosing a limb. I love some of the inane shots like when two welders are sitting in the big corrugated tubes welding. What the hell are they doing in there? Or when she is cutting six inches off of a rusty steel bar with a cutting torch. She was obviously board and just started cutting random things up.

But story holes like that can be overlooked if the movie is fun or at least stimulating in some way. Flashdance doesn't offer anything to balance it, however.

The dancing horrible. It is the spastic twitch-and-pose style that ruined American musicals until...well are we really over it yet? The sensuality that the movie tries for is ruined by Jennifer Beal's complete lack of personality. I mean I am a 42 year old male and when she was supposed to be eating lobster my only reaction was to think that she should get a lobster bib.

You can't really get behind Alex and her dreams because her character is so stupid and shallow. The dog had more going on than she did.

The love affair is flat. It comes across as nothing more than a boss with the hots for one of his workers. Zero passion.

Even the final scene where she dances for Orville Redenbacher and some other stiffs is unsatisfying because the panels reaction is so unbelievable. What serious dancers wouldn't roll their eyes at Alex's lame cheerleader routine? In short the movie had nothing but leg-warmers and large sweatshirts. Oh, yeah, there is a good chunk of nudity when Alex "rescues" her friend from being a useless erotic dancer (a laughable bit of hypocrisy). Other than that the movie is a waste of time. I wish that the MST3K crew were still in business. This would make good fodder for them.

With everyone and their brother oo-ing and ah-ing over the genius of M. Night Shyamalan's Signs I have to wonder if any of them sat through the films conclusion. Much of the praise is deserved. The film is masterfully crafted and directed. M. Night certainly knows how to build suspense and take the suspense/horror genre to a new level. In fact I just love this movie up until the end. Unfortunately unlike Shyamalan's prior films this film does not get better the more you think about it, instead it unravels like a cheap sweater and you are left feeling like you have just witnessed the most expensive shaggy-dog story ever.

Spoiler warning! Read only after seeing the movie (which you should do. The first part is well worth your time and money.)

Here are the things you have to be able to accept to be able to get into the films ultimate message.

1. God is willing to kill a mother and wife of a man of God just so she will give a clue that will years later prompt her brother-in-law to use a baseball bat that is hanging on the wall right next to him to whack an alien about to kill her son. (I mean I thought they were not attacking the alien because he was holding their kid in a threatening pose but apparently it was only because they couldn't think of what to hit it with.)

2. An alien race could develop technology that enables them to cloak their ships from view and travel untold billions of miles but never invent a single WEAPON!

3. A predator race that is raiding earth for humans to eat starts off their raid by floating in full view over major cities for a few nights, apparently just to let earthlings get ready. I mean they can be practically invisible when they want to. They could have all the humans they want before we even knew about it.

4. Not only could an alien race whose skin burns on contact with water ever evolve but they can walk around in our water-laden atmosphere without a protective suit. They also have a taste for humans, which are over 70% water. Ok, so maybe they make the people into jerky before they eat them or maybe they weren't even going to eat them but obviously they had no suits because the water did burn the alien in the living room. So why would these intelligent beings walk around on Earth which is also over 70% water (on the surface at least) without a protective suit?

For a movie that engages your mind so well for most of its running time Signs sure leaves a lot of gaping holes. I think M. Night is a brilliant director and usually his stories are very well thought out. This time however he has let us down in the end.

Also, his acting is not that good. He should probably leave that to others and stick to very small cameos.