Signs (2002)

Starring Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, Cherry Jones.
Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan.
Distributed by Touchstone Pictures.
107 minutes.

LVJeff's Rating: 9/10

Campfire Theater

You've all seen this scene in a movie or a t.v. show: a man sits at a campfire at night, surrounded by kids. He's holding a flashlight under his chin, pointing it upwards toward his face for dramatic lighting. He's telling a scary story, and the kids lean in with anticipation. If he's done a good job as a storyteller, he'll throw in the kicker -- a line at the end that causes the listeners to jump in fright. If not everyone is good at being such a storyteller, then director M. Night Shyamalan is one of the exceptions. He's a skilled flashlight-guy, and movie theaters are his campfires.

He begins his tale, Signs, as a mystery about crop circles appearing in the fields of a retired priest, Graham Hess (Mel Gibson). At first, he and his family, brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) and children Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin), dismiss the phenomenon as a hoax, but when the televesion news indicates that the crop circles are appearing all over the world, they begin to consider other possibilities. Every new bit of information seems to point them in the direction of an alien invasion. Could this possibly be true?

For the answer to this question, keep reading -- but be warned, for I give away an important plot point below (one that has already been spoiled by numerous reviews, actually). If you don't want a spoiler, then stop reading, go see this movie, and have a scary good time.

The cool thing about the way Shyamalan tells his stories is that he always does it from a different-than-usual perspective. The Sixth Sense is a ghost story told with few cheap shocks and more intelligent problem-solving, while Unbreakable revealed itself to be a low-key, non-dazzling superhero story. Signs is an alien-invasion movie as experienced from the most microcosmic of units -- one family. Unlike other films featuring visitors-from-space, Shyamalan's story doesn't concern itself with the national response to the emergency -- we only know what the family sees through local gossip and television reports. This change of focus allows us to get to know the Hesses, and about Graham's own personal dilemma in particular. Unbeknownst to him, the recent turn-of-events is about to change the concerns in his life.

But rather than get bogged down in the philosophical quandaries of the main character, Shyamalan maintains his focus on telling a good story. Everything in the movie is a device to amplify the emotional entertainment value for the audience. Just enough information is revealed about the characters to give the audience a genuine concern for them. Whether or not an alien invasion is actually occurring is revealed half-way through, so the suspense can come purely from knowing that something is indeed out there -- perhaps right outside the door. This creates the opportunity to feature scenes that ramp up the paranoia factor. All of this sets up some fun payoffs, particularly one hair-raising scene in a kitchen and the first of the climax scenes.

Like Steven Spielberg's Minority Report earlier this summer, Signs is all about entertaining and thrilling the audience, giving viewers just enough meat for their minds to chew on while fully satisfying the need for a blood rush. Also like Minority Report, Signs suffers from a few logical lapses -- Shyamalan's movie in particular requires a minor mental-processing leap to make the ending acceptable. In the big picture, however, these quibbles are small and the final result is a movie that will shine on the director's resume. Personally, I don't get creeped out too easily at the movies, but this campfire story really did the trick for me. I salute the continuing emergence of Shyamalan, a dazzling storytelling master.

©Jeffrey Chen, Jul. 30, 2002

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