Signs is the latest film from Academy Award-nominated writer, director, and random cameo-star M. Night Shyamalan. Now that I've managed to spell his name correctly once, no matter what the spellchecker says, I'm sure I'll never be able to do it again.

Mr. Shanana, writer and director of The Sixth Sense, has cornered the twenty-first century film market on "creepy." Little kids who see dead people are creepy. (And if I ruined that for you, you really need to get out more.) Samuel L. Jackson's haircut in Unbreakable was creepy. And crop circles, I assumed after seeing the first trailer for Signs, must somehow be creepy, too.

I must admit, I felt ambivalent about Signs before seeing it. While The Sixth Sensewas an incredible movie all around (even if someone had already ruined the ending for me), Unbreakable had left me feeling…apathetic, to say the least. And Signs looked still less promising, possibly due to the absence of Bruce Willis. But we have Mel Gibson to substitute for him, and everybody likes Mel. We also get Joaquin Phoenix, and while I think I might have liked him better back when he was Leaf Phoenix, what he always seems to do best in any movie I've ever seen him in is remind me that I liked River better than Joaquin or Leaf.

Filling out the required small child roles are yet another Culkin—Rory this time—and Abigail Breslin, who is more adorable than any Culkin kid could ever hope to be, and pretty creepy, to boot. "Creepy" is the word of choice when dealing with any M. Night Shampoo film, and every angle, nuance, music cue and whispered line is merely part of the whole, specifically designed to freak the audience out. In fact, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that the guy sitting behind me, making ooh noises at every creepy moment was on Mr. Shamalamadingdong's payroll.

Signs, like The Sixth Sense, is one of those movies you can't properly talk about without ruining. Which is, needless to say, rather unfortunate for critics. So, I have to talk around the plot, and hope I don't inadvertently tell you that Bruce Willis is dead the whole time.

Mel Gibson plays Graham Hess, a widowed Pennsylvania farmer, former minister, and father of two. I was a little alarmed when the film opened on a picture of ol' Mel in one of those traditional priest-collar-thingies with two kids on his lap, but have since been assured that some Christian ministers wear those collars without actually being priests. This is good to know.

Mel lives out in Bucks County, Pennsylvania (which, coincidentally, is not very far from where I live, so that always makes me happy), on a corn farm with his two children, Morgan and Bo (Culkin and Breslin), and his former minor-league baseball-playing brother, Merrill (Phoenix). On the morning the film starts, the Hess family wakes up to find some bizarre designs flattened into their crops, and we're off and running.

Actually, we're off and walking…slowly. While I can't really tell you anything about the movie, I can tell you that it's slow, subdued, and sedate. The opening credits are promising (and creepy, in their own way), with loud music, sudden spotlights and the like, and then it tapers off. There are a few laughs, a few scares, and one or two truly painful moments. But there was nothing that got me so involved in the film that I forgot to eat my popcorn. In fact, what sticks out in my head the most was one scene fairly early on, in which Mel takes a flashlight and heads out into the cornfield—and he doesn't look into the flashlight to make sure it's working, as everyone in every movie ever made must do.

Signs is, all in all, not a movie about crop circles, or about aliens, or about the end of the world. Signs is a movie about faith. It doesn't grab you by the shirt and pull you along for the ride, but there is enough mystery to keep you watching. And the most important thing to remember, as with every M. Night Shamu film is this: everything is important. Everything.

All in all, I give Signs two and a half asterisks—not awful, not great. Certainly better than I expected it to be, but I didn't leave the theater feeling that my $8.50 for the ticket and $8.25 for popcorn and soda couldn't have been better spent on a video and a couple slices of pizza. Mel is Mel, whether he's a minister or a rogue cop, and Joaquin Phoenix has definitely gone up a little in my estimation after seeing Signs. Rory Culkin is cute, creepy, and a better actor than Macaulay. Abigail Breslin as little Bo is one of those kids you want to take home and keep on a shelf because she's just so adorable. And everybody does his or her share of creepy.

But the creepiest thing, by far, was the Army Recruiter Guy's face. I don't know what's wrong with it, but it just bugged me. Keep an eye out when you see the movie. You'll know what I mean.