MOVIE - SIGNS - Review Rating $$$$$ $$$ (OUT OF 10)
STARRING - MEL GIBSON, JOAQUIN PHOENIX, RORY CULKIN, ABIGAIL BRESLIN, CHERRY JONES, PATRICIA KALEMBER, & M. NIGHT SHYAMALAN.
Mel Gibson stars as a widowed farmer and former Reverend whose farmland is being inundated with crop circles in this suspense thriller. As in The Sixth Sense, another deceptively thought provoking film by director M. Night Shyamalan, the main character suffers battle fatigue from seeing too many dead people.
This Sci-fi thriller is as much about aliens as Road to Perdition was about the Mob. The difference between the two movies is that, while Signs more adeptly handles the juxtaposition of opposing themes, Perdition was more upfront about its agenda. Some may consider it a sin to lure the audience in with the expectation of Sci-fi exploration when the real goal is to reaffirm our faith in God. Signs also revisits the debate regarding determinism vs. freewill, in Minority Report, with a decidedly different slant.
What redeems the film, from my perspective, is the quality of the product. While the left side of your brain grumbles, about the blatant attempt at conversion, the right half marvels at the design of the pill you have to swallow. The manner in which Gibson's character travels, to Perdition, allows Shyamalan great liberties with which to infuse the movie with wit, intelligence, suspense and thrills. The power of the imagination, ours and the main character's, is exploited to the full extent. The trick for the audience, as Freud used to say, is determining when a cigar is just a cigar.
The film, in the Hitchcock tradition, is able to spook us with a mix of eerily timed ordinary occurrences and off camera frights that our imaginations enhance. Director Shyamalan also gets a lot of mileage from the audience's expectation that a Sixth Sense plot device is about to be revealed. This is a trick that may wear thin is subsequent movies.
The performances are excellent. From the children, imbued with adult sensibilities, to the apparently whacked out locals who populate the story, the acting heightens the tension and our sense that something ominous is afoot. Gibson may well get an Oscar nomination for his portrayal of a highly conflicted former man of God. A great healer and comforter, constrained by his decency, who no longer believes in the message even if he still has the touch. As I watched, R.E.M.'s song Losing My Religion, kept coming to mind.
Signs, is that rare picture that executes its subplot (Sci-fi / horror) so well that if you are less than overjoyed with its larger message about faith you can still immensely enjoy it. Whether or not you do will depend to a large degree on whether your world view perceives the "glass" to be half empty or half full.
Alternate Reviews:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/ebert1/wkp-news-signs02f.html
http://www.rollingstone.com/mv_reviews/review.asp?mid=2044082
http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/Signs-1114791/
Official Website:
http://bventertainment.go.com/movies/signs/index.html
MY TOP 10 MOVIES OF 2002 LIST
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2003
David Schwartz.
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8/9/03; 11:05:56 PM.
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