Silent Warnings

After the accidental death of his cousin Joe Vossimer (Stephen Baldwin), the just-graduated electronic engineer Layne Vossimer (A.J. Buckley) joins his girlfriend and four friends of them to visit and clean the inherited farm in the country. The local Sheriff Bill Willingham (Billy Zane) is an old friend of Layne, and also grieves the death of Joe. When the group arrives in the farm, some weird and mysterious signs appear in the cornfield, but they believe the other locals are joking with them. When Iris Doyle (Kim Onasch) vanishes, the rest of the group realizes that there is a serious menace jeopardizing that place.

"Warnings" is a ridiculous horror-sci-fi movie, a shameful ripoff of "Signs", inclusive using a location identical to Mel Gibson's farm. What else can I write about a movie where the participation of "the great actor" (of course I am being ironical…) Stephen Baldwin is less than five minutes, only to give his name to the credits? I have just glanced some IMDb reviews, and their titles are enough to describe and comment this crap:

a) "Stupid";

b) "Awful";

c) "WHAT A JOKE...,";

d) "My God, Save Your Money!";

e) "Garbage";

f) "What a complete waste of time";

g) "What a rip-off";

h) "Total 'Signs' Rip-Off".

My vote is three.

Title (Brazil): "Aviso Mortal" ("Mortal Warning")

OK, this film isn't anything special, but I was motivated to watch it because of A.J. Buckley, who plays Layne. He did the best that he could with his character, I totally enjoyed his performance. He can say everything just with his beautiful blue eyes. Whoever appreciates this actor and his work, should definitely watch this film. He's the best! The characters could have been developed a lot more, especially Layne's. He had issues with his girlfriend, but the script seemed to forget about it quite quickly. The ending felt rushed, and it sort of ruined the premise. Overall, it could have been much, much better. A.J.'s performance made it OK to watch, but the rest of the cast was weak, with the exception of Billy Zane, who wasn't given enough room to shine, though.

Of course, it was obvious that it was a rip-off of Signs, but I didn't quite know what to make of Signs, so I thought this might provide a more wholesome movie experience. It started out well. After the main character's cousin mysteriously dies in a car crash, this guy and five college friends of his go to the cousin's house in a corn field near a small rural village. It's a good set-up, and there is a very nice and natural dynamic between all the characters, leading one to think that there might actually be a good story in here somewhere.

Unfortunately, there isn't. The interesting character interactions, which you want to see developed, get cut short by some silly nonsense about anonymous grey aliens. The end is a meaningless fizzle, where you can't tell if the alien invasion is retreating or advancing.

The movie starts out having a point, but ends up having none. 4 out of 10.

Is Billy Zane so hard-up for work that he has to spend his time shooting aliens in this stupid mess of a film? Likewise Stephen Baldwin. . .at least his entire role consists of him alone, and was likely shot in one day. Yet another teens-in-trouble movie with the requisite quasi-sex. Why did sci-fi waste my time with this f'ing waste of film stock?

I feel that the other comments made about this movie do not exactly do it justice. I just rented and watched a copy of it last night, and I feel a little more generous than some of the other posters. Firstly, one has to address the fact that this movie is highly derivative of "Signs". Basicaly, the premise is the same. Crop circles mysteriously appear in a farmer's field and trouble ensues.

The acting is about what you would expect. Baldwin is far too over the top to really appreciate, but Billy Zane does a great job, as do most of the actors that portray the college kids trying to fix up the old farm house.

The CGI aliens are not done very well and look really fake. The build up of tension throughout the movie, however, is well done. There are some scenes where I couldn't help but jump and, in general, I think that this movie actually did a better job of interpreting the possible uses of crop circles better than signs. In this movie, the circles are used as a type of portal system for the aliens to get from place to place. In terms of a further comparison with signs, the ending is a lot more bleak.

I felt that signs included a cheesy supernatural element that, thankfully, was mostly absent from this film. Don't rent it expecting to see something on the same scale of Signs, but if you liked it and the ideas it presented, you should get some enjoyment out of this as well.