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62 of 77 people found the following review helpful:
THEY DO NOT COME IN PEACE..., September 13, 2002
This is a superlative movie on many levels, and the director, M. Night Shyamalan, proves that he is a force with which to be reckoned. After his blockbuster hit, "The Sixth Sense', the viewing audience expected great things from him. When his next film, "Unbreakable", did not draw the raves that "The Sixth Sense" did, the viewing public anxiously awaited his next film to see if Shyamalan could, once again, hit it out of the ballpark. With "Signs", he confirms that he is, indeed, one of the directorial greats. This film is about many things. It is about loss of a loved one. It is about family. It is about relationships. It is about things that we cannot control. It is about the inexplicable. It is about destiny. Yes, it is most certainly about alien invasion. It is also ultimately about one man's crisis of faith. The film is a wonderful, scary, and amazing film. It centers around the Hess family, who has recently sustained the loss of Colleen Hess (Patricia Kalember) in a terrible accident one night. Wife to Graham (Mel Gibson), mother to Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin), and sister-in-law to Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), her death was felt on many levels. Graham, a minister in rural Bucks County, Pennsylvania, was so distraught over the senseless (or so he thinks) death of his wife, that he left his ministry and is now living a purely secular life with their children and his brother, Merrill. Graham simply cannot understand why God has seemingly forsaken him. The death of his wife has divested him of his faith, and he finds himself struggling in the world without it. One morning, Graham discovers crop circles in the cornfield in front of his house. Other strange things begin to happen, all while he is trying to maintain a sense of normalcy in a world that has suddenly changed in a way that he could never have envisioned. Worldwide, crop circles are mysteriously appearing, seemingly strategically, and, before one knows it, alien invaders are here. They are creepy. They are scary. They do not come in peace. The focus of the film is not so much on the alien invaders, however, but on how the family responds and interacts in this time of crisis. There are some very frightening scenes in this film. They are all the more frightening for what one does not see rather than what one does see. There are some aspects of "The Blair Witch Project" at work here. Shyamalan certainly understands the concept that less is sometimes more and uses it to great effect. The effective use of tension by the director is one of the great strengths of this film. Sly, subtle humor is also used to great advantage. The other important component of the film is the acting. There is not one bad performance in this film. Shyamalan, who normally gives himself a brief cameo in his own films, gave himself the part of Ray Reddy, the man who was the catalyst for the tragedy that enveloped the Hess household. He gives a more than credible performance. Abigail Breslin is simply delightful as little Bo, a child too young to fully comprehend what is going on around her, but who, nonetheless, reacts to its shifting permutations. Rory Culkin (yes, Macauley's younger brother in real life) gives a wonderfully intense performance as Bo's big brother. A somewhat singleminded child, he immediately becomes a believer in extraterrestrials and tries to gain an understanding on his own of what is to come. It is Mel Gibson, however, along with Joaquin Phoenix, who ratchets up the ante. Mel Gibson gives a beautifully nuanced and sensitive performance, playing it totally straight with occasional flashes of humor. It is a performance of a conflicted man who cannot bear what has happened to him and does not reach an understanding until it is almost too late. In the end, he is able to see how some of what has happened to his family has had a semblance of a greater design. Even his wife's last words to him, so seemingly meaningless before, grow rich with meaning at the end. Joaquin Phoenix is one of the younger generation's most talented actors. He infuses the role of Merrill with a vulnerability that is, at times, heartbreaking. Yet, somehow the viewer knows that the Hess family can count on him to be there for them one hundred percent. While he is not so conflicted as his brother Graham, however, he seems to need validation. As the film barrels towards its climactic ending, scenes leading up to Colleen's last moments are woven throughout the film. This serves to show the viewer that the events of the present have meaning when grounded in the context of the past. It will come full circle in the end. This is a wonderful, beautiful, suspenseful, and scary film that is well worth seeing, and I eagerly await release of the DVD.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
Masterful Low-Key Horror, February 20, 2006
It's interesting, I'd always liked this movie a lot, but watching it again after a 3 year layoff I finally see just how extraordinarily well done this is. I've watched a helluva lot of horror movies in the past 3 years, and watching this again I really see how it's on a completely different level from the vast majority of them. When it comes to creating a slow rise in tension and simply inserting the supernatural into the apparently real world 'Signs' has few peers. This relates to a small flaw, perhaps: Once we get to the climax, once we've seen all there is to see, the reality proves a little too mundane. But, the strength of the journey itself more than makes up for this slight anticlimax. This is definitely one of the very best horror movies of the new millenium.
I've heard some complain that the film lacks sight of the big picture due to its exclusive emphasis on the central family but I think that's what really makes it work, what really makes it real. After all, who cares about the big picture? We don't experience the world as a city or nation, we do it as individuals. That and it just allows us to really get to know the characters, and for Shyamalan to create full, real characters rather than just having a pack of cliches in various cities spread out across the nation. (Like you'd see in something like 'Deep Impact', for example.) Phoenix and Gibson are both absolutely great in this film, particularly Phoenix. Gibson's Graham is a little to cold and distant for us to relate to him initially, so we really connect with Phoenix's Merrill first, though I definitely came around to liking Graham as the movie went on. They're both utterly naturalistic, and manage a real severe intensity in the most emotional scenes while still avoiding any histrionics. The two children, Culkin and Breslin, are fine. I'm always leery of children having prominent roles in movies, but Shyamalan largely avoids sentimentalizing them excessively (Morgan is kind of a whiny dork) or earning cheap audience identification. (In the scenes where the kids are in the greatest peril I identified far more with Graham then with the children themselves.)
Certainly, this won't be to everyone's taste as it is extremely low key up until the very end. And I don't mean this simply in the sense that it isn't violent or gory; that's true of a lot of modern horror films. The film simply refuses to show you much of anything through out the vast majority of the run time. There's a lot of noise related horror, obviously, and it goes light on the jump scares. (More amazingly, some of these scare tactics were actually surprising. Even after having seen it a couple of time before a few years back a couple of these were slightly surprising.) The film uses a particularly classic setting, the old siege on the farmhouse a la 'Night of the Living Dead'. Again, the primary siege is just so impressive because it manages real intensity despite the fact that they show you virtually nothing. The true climax is less effective, but it's still fine and is necessary from a thematic standpoint. Many people have complained about the `twist' in this film. I've got some news for you: This movie doesn't have a twist. Morons.
In the end, however, it may be the human element that really makes this movie standout. It's just a very tragic portrait of a family that has largely fallen apart. I'll admit it, it probably goes a little to far a couple of times, but it also manages a few genuinely moving scenes, which more than compensates. (Particularly note the great scene of Graham and Merrill discussing fate late one night, and Merrill's confronting Graham after the invasion night and so on.) As I always say, I don't really insist that my movies have realistic or likable characters, but the very best ones usually do. And 'Signs' has got that. Furthermore, Shyamalan's dialogue is generally leaps and bounds beyond what you usually see in a horror film, and it's also really quite funny much of the time.
I've heard a lot of morons complain that the aliens here don't behave in a realistic fashion. I had a long-winded rant worked out in my mind, but these people aren't gonna be convinced by that, or anything, as a matter of fact, so I'll just keep it simple: It's absurd to claim that the aliens in this behave in an unrealistic fashion because we, the viewer, don't know anything about them. There are an infinite number of potential explanations for why they act as they do, and 0 reasons to believe they would behave any other way. Any supposed logic you may have come up with relating to the aliens is irrelevant, because they are wholly of and within the movie. And perhaps more to the point, this comes with the territory. Complaining about the aliens in this film is like complaining about how hardly anybody has any guns in a contemporary martial-arts film.
Yes this is a great film. Definitely Shyamalan's best in my mind, as of this moment.
Grade: A
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7 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
Signs A gripping thriller!, January 18, 2003
Signs is another one of those summer 2002 movies that I was unfortunately able to make it to. That was a regrettable mistake. Signs, from director M. Night Shyamalan is a mellow yet gripping, edge of your seat thriller in the strongest sense of the term. Although I'd heard several disparaging remarks about this film, I'm quite glad that I'd not listened to them. This film is a fine addition to your DVD collection!The premise: MINOR SPOILERS Mel Gibson stars as a farmer and former pastor whose lost his wife due to a horrible auto accident and consequently he's lost his faith in God. He wakes up one morning to find that his two young children are out of the house and screaming. On his way out of the house, he runs in to his brother, played by Joaquin Phoenix (of Gladiator fame). They frantically search for and find them in the corn field where crop "signs" have been emblazoned in his corn crops. What follows from this point is clearly one of the finest suspense/thriller films this viewer has watched in quite some time. As writer, director and actor, M. Night Shyamalan has crafted a fine film that in no uncertain terms will quickly bring you into it emotionally and leave you exhausted at the end. Of particular note is the older style of movie making where the director does not immediately put the special effects right in your face. For the better part, until the end of the movie, he leaves much of the suspense to the imagination. In doing this, he creates even more suspense for the viewer than any other format might've done. The musical score for the film lends perfectly to every scene, from the mellow to the highly dramatic. Helping with the score for the home viewer is the THX format.
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