Signs Review
by Eugene Novikov (eugenen AT wharton DOT upenn DOT edu)July 31st, 2002
Signs (2002)
Reviewed by Eugene Novikov
http://www.ultimate-movie.com/
Starring Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, Cherry Jones, M. Night Shyamalan.
Directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
Rated PG-13.
"It's happening."
**While I avoid venturing into true spoiler territory, I do describe the plot of a movie best seen cold. If you care about such matters, best save it for later.**
Regular readers of this site will know that there is no director whose next project I anticipate more fervently than M. Night Shyamalan, the almost unreasonably talented auteur whose The Sixth Sense shocked the nation, and whose follow-up Unbreakable left most people cold, though I walked out gasping for breath. His filmmaking sensibilities are amazingly in tune with my own, namely his affection for slow-moving suspense dramas, the kinds of films that mount tension gradually, keep us on the edge of our seats with what's left just out of frame. He has been hailed as the new Hitchcock; a more accurate description might be the new Roman Polanski.
Signs, a remarkably engaging technical masterwork, is Shyamalan exploring new aspects of the suspense genre while remaining firmly planted within his niche. Like Unbreakable, it takes an established archetype and brilliantly turns it on its head. This is a bona-fide alien invasion story, think War of the Worlds and Independence Day, told entirely from the vantage point of a family that decides to board up inside their farmhouse and ride out the storm. No clandestine paramilitary operations or Will Smith chasing baddies through the skies hereabouts. The spaceships are seen only as fuzzy pictures in news broadcasts. As for the actual aliens, you'll have to see for yourself.
The family in question is headed by ex-reverend Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), who quit the church just months earlier, after losing his wife in a brutal car accident. His brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) used to be a minor-league baseball star who quit because he held the strike-out record along with the home run record. Morgan (Rory Culkin) is an inquisitive, intelligent boy with a bad case of asthma, and little Bo (Abigail Breslin) has an obsession with her drinking water. This may be, in all seriousness, the most wholesome portrayal of family seen on screen in decades; their relationships aren't all sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, but their intense love for each other is evident in scene after uncommonly intelligent scene.
As a pure technical exercise, the movie has few equals; not even Fincher's Panic Room, this year's other pure suspense machine can match it. Shyamalan never steps wrong, never reveals more than he has to, teases us, plays with our minds, all the while withholding a remarkable number of things from his audience. There's a scene in which the screen goes black while bumps and crashes are heard -- I won't reveal its exact circumstances, but suffice it to say that it's a pivotal moment -- and while it may sound like Shyamalan is simply recycling an age-old standby, its set-up is such that the effect is breathtaking.
The guy is clearly a fan of pointing the camera where the action isn't, and surprisingly, it works time after time. He even uses this technique on key character moments that aren't meant to be scary: a crucial Gibson monologue occurs with Phoenix's face filling the screen. He films many scenes in long, continuous takes, not afraid to make the actors earn their paychecks and occasionally put pressure on some attention spans. He's assisted by a beautiful score by James Newton Howard, versatile despite repeating the same insanely catchy theme.
Indeed, Signs is so smart, so scary, so moving, so perfect in so many ways that it smarts to have to stick that addendum onto yonder grade. Unfortunately, Shyamalan's admirable intention to have his films be about something in this case leads to a rather simplistic, heavy-handed message delivered with all the subtlety of a bowling ball across the jaw. The movie is meant as an affirmation of faith, delivering the message that we are all better off believing that there is something, someone out there to help us, that there is no such thing as a coincidence, that "luck" is a poor man's miracle. And while this never interferes with the rest of Shyamalan's creation -- the sudden, abrupt ending is powerful with or without the the message it hammers in -- it's a misstep in an otherwise meticulous composition, more than up to the high standards this brilliant young filmmaker has already set for himself.
Grade: A-
Up Next: Mr. Deeds
©2002 Eugene Novikov
Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
