'Allo! I'm not contributing to Ciao for the time being but if you are bored / desperate / weird enou...
'Allo! I'm not contributing to Ciao for the time being but if you are bored / desperate / weird enough to wish to continue to read my ramblings, you can find me on Dooyoo under the user name plipplop. See you around! :P
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Do you ever have expectations that a film is going to be about one thing, when in actual fact it turns out to be about something else? Signs was certainly like this for me. Even the cinema trailers had suggested that it was going to be something that it wasn’t, but I still wasn’t disappointed. Such is the storytelling capability of M Night Shyamalan that I still found myself completely engrossed from start to finish.
When a truck driver runs down Graham Hess’s wife, he is utterly devastated and completely loses faith in the church. He relinquishes his role as a priest, and retires to a corn farm, where his younger brother helps him raise the couple’s two children. A commotion early one morning startles the two men, who rush from the house into the cornfield to see what is happening. The sight that greets them is as terrifying as it is spectacular. A huge crop circle (or crop sign) has appeared in the middle of the field, completely flattening a huge area of corn and creating a detailed pattern visible only from the sky.
Graham initially calls the local police officer, who comes out to investigate the bizarre phenomenon. She is equally bemused, but when she advises him that there have been a number of strange occurrences across the town, Graham starts to feel uneasy.
His son, Morgan, believes that the crop signs are huge markers left by an alien force that are used to mark out the surface of the planet for a forthcoming invasion. Whilst Graham dismisses the theory as being the product of an over active imagination, he cannot shake off the feeling of unease and when he hears something moving outside, he goes into the corn field to investigate. What he finds terrifies him, and confirms that Morgan may be closer to the truth than any of them could realise. And then strange lights appear in the sky over Mexico City…..
If you’re looking for Independence Day 2 then you will be disappointed with this film. Whereas Independence Day was a story about the global implications of a world-wide scale invasion, Signs is nothing of the sort. Signs contains an alien race and it also contains an invasion plan, but if you scratch beneath the surface, you’ll find that this film is not just a simple tale of science fiction. Signs is a story about faith and the way in which we perceive our lives. Everyone has heard the simple philosophy that the glass can either be half full or half empty – Signs demonstrates this further through the lives of the Hess family.
What I found so intriguing about this film was the fact that from start top finish I really didn’t know what to expect. At times, I thought it was going to descend into a Spielberg-esque tale of alien close encounters. At others, I thought we were going to be confronted by an alien-based Jurassic Park story. On both counts I was completely wrong, but such is the skill of Shymalan’s story writing ability that I still can’t quite come up with words to describe this film. The story doesn’t so much twist as blossom and flourish, with a few frights along the way. This is a film on which you to have to concentrate, and about which you have to think – which is probably one of the reasons why main stream cinema audiences were a little disappointed.
The arrival of the aliens is generally seen only through the television set that becomes a integral part of the Hess family’s household as the story develops. In much the same way that it was rather bizarre watching the Gulf War unfold on television, in Signs we watch the aliens machinations unfold largely through the TV. I thought this was an extremely effective way of alerting us to what was going on in the world, without detracting from the fact that the film takes place almost entirely within the Hess family home. The most startling (and probably frightening) moment from the whole film occurs during a news report, when an alien is sighted for the first time. The combination of the news reader’s evident feeling of unease, coupled with the shaky camera footage and the screams of the children looking through their back window is truly terrifying. There are few similarities with Shyamalan’s previous movies, although the combination of jumpy moments and jumpy music was rather like The Sixth Sense.
Signs stars Mel Gibson in an unconventionally timid role. Gibson is excellent as the confused priest, struggling to look after his family and deal with his grief at the same time. Although he probably is the hero of the tale, he is also perpetually frightened throughout the film and is very convincing indeed. His younger brother, Merrill, gradually becomes drawn into the nation wide fear of the aliens and Joaquin Phoenix perfectly combines wide-eyed superstition with a natural instinct to protect those around him. Shyamalan himself has a small part in the film – that of Ray Reddy, the unfortunate local man who was responsible for the death of Graham’s wife. I have to say that I also thought that Cherry Jones was excellent as Officer Paski. Her conversation with Graham as he arrived at the scene of his wife’s death was very moving and provided one of the most poignant scenes in the film.
The combination of ingredients in Signs makes it one of the most unusual films I’ve seen for quite some time. I wouldn’t say that it was a frightening film, nor was it horrific, but it was certainly very unsettling. There is something inherently creepy about those cornfields and the director makes full usage of them. I came away from the film with lots of different thoughts – and that must be a good thing. Nonetheless, this is one of those films that I could only ever watch once. It is the intrigue of what is about to happen next that will fuel your interest in this film.
Recommended – for rental Not recommended – for purchase Recommended – for free view
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Production Year: 2007 - Science Fiction - Director: Francis Lawrence - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Alice Braga, Charlie Tahan, Dash Mihok, Will Smith, Salli Richardson, Willow Smith
Production Year: 2007 - Science Fiction - Director: Francis Lawrence - Original Language: English - Classification: 15 years and over - Starring: Willow Smith, Dash Mihok, Will Smith, Charlie Tahan, Salli Richardson, Alice Braga
Love Mel Gibson but as you put so well, not what I expected at all. Not a bad film though - Great op x
mrpaella 15.04.2003 22:40
An excellent review. I would love to see this on video. Thanks, Phil...Paul
Calypte 05.04.2003 18:17
That first sentence was exactly how I found this film - not at all what I expected, and it did affect my enjoyment. I'd disagree on the one watch only, though: I find I'm quite looking forward to a second viewing to see if I can appreciate more once my preconceptions aren't in the way. Besides, I have a lousy memory!
Director-writer M Night Shyamalan brings his distinctive, oblique approach to aliens ... more
inSignsafter tackling ghosts (The Sixth Sense) and superheroes (Unbreakable). With Mel Gibson replacing Bruce Willis as the traditional Shyamalan hero--a family man tr...
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From M. Night Shyamalan, the writer/director of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, comes the ... more
story of the Hess family in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, who wake up one morning to find a 500-foot crop circle in their backyard. Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) and hi...
Director-writer M Night Shyamalan brings his distinctive, oblique approach to aliens ... more
inSignsafter tackling ghosts (The Sixth Sense) and superheroes (Unbreakable). With Mel Gibson replacing Bruce Willis as the traditional Shyamalan hero--a family man tr...
Postage & Packaging: Free! Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
From M. Night Shyamalan the gifted writer/director of The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable ... more
comes the story of the Hess family in Bucks County Pennsylvania who wake up one morning to find a 500 foot crop circle in their backyard. Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) a...
Postage & Packaging: £0.00 Availability: 3-5 working days
Advantages: Makes you think...and keep on thinking for ages afterwards, it has Mr Gibson in it, superb directing Disadvantages: A bit scary to be rated 12 - and all that thinking made my brain hurt
Collingwood21 12.10.2002 (12.10.2002)
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Review of Signs (DVD)
Advantages: Makes you think...and keep on thinking for ages afterwards, it has Mr Gibson in it, superb directing Disadvantages: A bit scary to be rated 12 - and all that thinking made my brain hurt
Collingwood21 12.10.2002 (12.10.2002)
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Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful
Review of Signs (DVD)
![Signs [DTS] [DVD] [2002]](http://picnicb.ciao.com/uk/76771759.jpg "Signs [DTS] [DVD] [2002]")
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