Signs

For everyone living under a rock, the premise of Signs is that ALIENS ARE INVADING THE EARTH!!!

Hope that wasn't too much of a spoiler for you...

The movie starts with no pretense (unless you count Shyamalan's name before the title, HA!). Gibson's character, Graham Hess, wakes up to the sound of his young daughter screaming. He goes outside to investigate, and lo and behold, there's a crop circle in his cornfield.

Was it local pranksters? That's what Hess believes. He calls the sheriff (Cherry Jones) to investigate. Soon, though, as the "pranksters" continue to visit the farm and field, the family begins to believe maybe there's more going on than just "nerds," as Merrill Hess (Joaquin Phoenix) puts it.

This movie takes a very flimsy, 50s B-movie concept, and makes it real. As with Unbreakable, the characters are humans dealing with a very strange, can-it-be-true situation. Plus, and pretty much every reviewer has been making this statement, Shyamalan has a gift for directing child actors. Look at Haley Joel Osment in The Sixth Sense for a prime example of a talented child actor working with a talented director.

The heart of the story, of course, is the Hess family. Hess and his children are still mourning the accidental death of Hess's wife, and Hess's brother is bewildered but eager to help. The relationships between the children, the children and their father, and the Hess brothers are very interesting. Part of what makes the movie so scary is that you genuinely care about these people and hate to see any harm come to them.

There is a clever balance of humor and terror to this movie. It's very claustrophobic, but there is just enough humor thrown in to make the situation believable and to break the melodrama that could so easily take over.

Of course, the movie isn't perfect. Shyamalan himself plays a minor yet pivotal part, but this results in unintentional hilarity. There is a scene when the family is in town eating pizza, and Graham notices Shyamalan's character across the street getting into his car. Their eyes lock for a DISTURBINGLY long moment, with the camera focused much too closely on Shyamalan's head. Merrill and the kids look up, and again, the moment is too long.

Graham's son Morgan asks "Is that him?"

My husband pipes up, "Yes, that's him, that's the director."

Later in the film, you understand why they noticed Shyamalan's character, but during that long glancing session, it appears to be pure vanity on Shyamalan's part. That sequence is out of place with the rest of the movie, where not a shot is wasted and things are revealed a piece at a time. Things that seem completely irrelevant when they are first revealed become very important by the climax. Plus, Shyamalan is not afraid to let an image tell the story, and he rarely uses images that scream "Plot point!"

The casting was very good; Mel Gibson, of course, is well suited to playing a father and a man wrestling with faith. Joaquin Phoenix, though, almost stole the show with his character; Merrill Hess could very easily have been just a jock goofball, but there was depth there that I'm sure Shyamalan didn't write in. The daughter (Abigail Breslin) is adorable, and Rory Culkin plays Morgan with a beleagered sadness.

I really enjoyed this movie. It's rare for me to see a movie that genuinely scares me, and this is one of those. It didn't leave me with the lingering shivers that The Sixth Sense did, but in the theater, I could barely sit still as the tension mounted.

A final point: I love movies that leave the monster to your imagination.

Back to Reviews Page | Home