Rating: 
Country: USA
Release Date: August 2, 2002
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Movie Review: Signs
by
Published: July 19, 2002
Distributor: |
Director: |
Cast: |
Buena Vista Pictures |
M. Night Shyamalan |
Mel Gibson as Father Graham Hess
Joaquin Phoenix as Merrill Hess
Rory Culkin as Morgan Hess
Abigail Breslin as Bo Hess
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For more information: IMDb Link |
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The long-awaited M. Night Shyamalan film, “Signs,” hopes to capture audiences with a recipe that bodes as
well for reviews as it does for box-office potential:
A creepily interesting subject (crop circles), a
director whose name is well-respected (Shyamalan), and
a bona-fide movie star (Gibson). "Signs" is sadly not
the sum of its parts. The film’s trailers and website
are cool, and audiences are surely hoping that “Signs
will be reminiscent of Shyamalan’s intriguing and
fascinating prior films. Unfortunately, it is not.
To be quite frank, I'm not personally a big Shyamalan
fan. “The Sixth Sense” was a cool film, though, and
well received enough that Shyamalan seemed to become
Hollywood’s newest prodigy almost overnight.
“Unbreakable,” I thought, was only moderately good,
but the success of “Sixth Sense” helped to make it
profitable. Shyamalan now, however, seems to have hit
his rock-bottom (at least I hope)... because “Signs”
is, to put it simply, bad.
The movie is set 45 miles outside of Philadelphia, on
the farm of Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), a former
Reverend who lost his faith following the car accident
death of his wife. He has two children, Morgan (Rory
Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin). Hess’s brother
Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) lives on the farm with the
family. In the film’s opening scene, we see the first
“sign,” a giant crop circle that has mysteriously
appeared in Hess’s cornfield. It is far from the only
one; soon the whole globe is shown to be of cornfields
branded with these mysterious “signs.” Signs of what?
There is an explanation in the movie, but it's so dull
and contrived that the idea of using crop circles as
the main theme of the film seems just ridiculous. Yes,
aliens made them, and yes, we will see these aliens,
but there’s no thanks in either. Essentially, the
whole alien storyline is just garnish for the film's
real message, which has to do wholly with
spirituality, faith and fate.
During the movie, viewers will be reminded via
formulaic special effects and photography of several
other sci-fi films and thrillers: “ID4,” “War of the
Worlds,” and “Children of the Corn,” to mention a few.
Here, though, we are treated to Shyamalan’s trademark
of slow story development – and frankly, this is the
only thing which doesn’t disappoint. This slow
development, while entertaining and suspenseful as it
happens, has no payoff. The viewers has a constant
feeling that something is about to happen --
something, a twist, a revelation, anything –- it is
not the case. As the credits began to roll, I could
not believe what I had just seen; the movie was bad.
I must say that despite the above flaws, the film has
a few good moments. The actors do well enough in their
roles (except Shyamalan himself -- who of course has a
minor role here), but this may well be out of
necessity; we only really meet six characters in this
film. There is a little humor, but it comes largely in
the film’s first hour: the young ones wears hats made
of aluminum foil to prevent aliens from reading their
minds, and Merill uses bags of dog food to block the
path of the aliens -- what an idea!
This is Shyamalan’s second outing since the acclaimed
“Sixth Sense.” Many fans were disappointed by
2002's “Unbreakable,” and once “Signs” is released, I
strongly doubt anybody will consider Shyamalan a
prodigy any longer. He should, at the very least,
leave the sci-fi genre alone. It’ll take me some time,
and a couple of good movies, to forget how
disappointed I was with “Signs.”
Overall rating: C
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