Has anyone seen the "real" M. Night Shyamalan lately? The genius who wasresponsible for "The Sixth Sense"? Where has he wandered and will he everreturn to the writing and directing form we know so well? As King Monghut(Yul Brynner) in "The King and I" would have said, "is a mystery" that I amloathe to solve.

This reviewer has come away from his latest creation, "Signs," and iswondering just what Mr. Shyamalan had on his mind as he envisioned andwrote it. He has produced, for all intents and purposes, two totallydifferent sets of subject matter that are bucking the yoke that triesmightily to bind them, and the results are uneven and forced.

Mel Gibson is Graham Hess, who until six months ago, was an ordainedminister, married and the father of a young son and daughter. Tragically,his entire world is turned upside down when a yo! ung man (M. NightShyamalan) falls asleep at the wheel of his car one night and crashes intoa truck. The unlikely victim in this collision was not either driver, butHess's wife, Colleen (Patricia Kalember) who had been taking a walk downthe dark country road before dinner and is pinned between the two vehicles.We are shown throughout the film, at emotional times of trouble, flashbacksof that terrible night and the repercussions that resulted. As a result ofthis accident, Hess leaves the constrictions of his vocation and questionshis faith with unceasing volatility, until a series of crop "signs" arediscovered on his property.

His young brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), has moved in with the familyto help keep the farm, hearth and kin afloat, as it is ferried down theRiver Styx and to the open arms of aliens who will make up the "second"story of this film. Merrill had a promising career as a minor league!baseball player, but had the unfortunate habit of hitting every ball withsuch force and abandon. He literally played himself out of a job and intothe record books as possessing, among other things, the record for moststrikeouts. As a result, he has never realized his full potential and isnow employed at a gas station.

Morgan and Bo Hess (played respectively by Abigail Breslin and Rory Culkin)are strange, out of sort children. Morgan has the "tic" of always assumingthat there is a problem with any water that she drinks. As a result, thehouse is littered with glass upon glass, that will present an encouragingturn of events as the film progresses (think of visions of "The Wizard ofOz"). Bo, as played by the younger brother of Macauley Culkin, is thatchild actor, "flavour of the month" that seems to permeate films today. Heis old beyond his years and possesses the wisdom of the ages, or so wewould be led to believe. His Achilles Heel is to suffer from asthma, andthat too, will play a prominent part in the film.

What is puzzling about this film is that Shyamalan can't make up his mindprecisely what he wants to present to the viewer. Is it a story aboutfeeling God has abandoned a true believer in his hour of need, or, is thisa story about aliens and the wrath they want to incur? Either story couldhave been built upon, but as separate units; rather like a "two for two"sale. Is the audience supposed to be mesmerized by a story that seems toborrow occasionally from George Pal's 1953 classic, "The War of The Worlds"or be stupefied by the desertion of Hess from his faith? It's extremelyhard to fathom just how this family, this dysfunctional foursome, manage tohold it all together in the face of the alien invasion. Phoenix's onedisplay of true emotion was garnered when he watched a news report ontelevision o! f a birthday party video from Brazil on national news,showing an alien in all his consummate and unwelcome glory. The seniorHess's make the decision to barricade themselves in their home and whilethis is fine and reasonable up to a point, at what juncture were theysupposed to question their supplies, food, escape routes, or mostimportantly, making real contact with others in their community? Gibsondoes make an unexpected visit to Ray Reddy (Shyamalan), after receiving anaborted call, and discovers that while Reddy is "ready" to leave the area,he has left a "caller" locked in the kitchen pantry for Gibson toinvestigate, as we know he will. What is so incredible in this story,though, is the suggestion presented that the aliens, with all theirtechnological wizardry, are susceptible to a very common thing here onEarth (a la "The War of The Worlds"). One wonders if H. G. Wells (author of"The War of The Worlds")! were alive today, along with Barre Lyndon (writerfor the film of the same name), could they sue for infringement?

The special effects of "Signs" are of the maniacal, crazed and evil variety-- translation: the aliens. They are a decided change from the charmers ofSteven Spielberg's "Close Encounters of The Third Kind" who sought to beour friends. As in "The War of The Worlds," Shymalan's are up to no good.Verbalizations by his aliens are akin to those as displayed in JohnMcTiernan's 1987, "Predator," and are of the clicking variety (anotherliberal "borrowing"), and their body makeup is as we have always thought itwould be -- green, but these visitors are NOT little.

The one saving grace for "Signs" is the musical score by James NewtonHoward. The four opening notes of the film reminded this reviewer of theopening notes from "Danse Macbre" by Saint Saens, and just as eerie. Howardhas been in tandem with Shyam! alan's films since the inception of "TheSixth Sense" and parlayed his success to "Unbreakable" and now "Signs." Itputs one in mind of the long association that Bernard Herrmann had withAlfred Hitchcock, and one wonders if Howard will continue in the same veinas his esteemed colleague. Howard's score is ripe with characterizationsand his three note motif is played with a variety of success throughout. Ofcourse, some adaptation has also come via Herrmann's most famous score forHitchcock's "Psycho," with piercing violins, and while this is not totallya bad thing in and of itself, it cheapens an otherwise fantastic renderingby him.

Shyamalan is missing in action, searching for that previous success thatmade his film, "The Sixth Sense," a household name and the sentence, "I seedead people" a catch phrase that still reverberates to this day. "There's amonster outside my bedroom door. Can I have a glass of water?", uttered byBo, simply doesn't convey the same spine tingling scariness as that utteredby Haley Joel Osment. Perhaps Shyamalan needs to back away from thebusiness of horror for a while, and concentrate all of his energies onbuilding a story that truly draws his audience into another world. "Signs"is a bastardized pretender to the throne, and as Shakespeare would havesaid, it's "much ado about nothing."