almost perfect sci-fi film (SPOILERS)

Rating: Null/10 (21 August 2002)

For approximately the first 90% of its running time, `Signs' is a terrifically entertaining sci-fi suspense thriller. As he did a few years back in `The Sixth Sense,' writer/director M. Night Shyamalan shows that he has the ability to rethink old genres, mainly by providing enough philosophical ballast to help counter the more farfetched aspects of the subjects he is tackling. In this case, the subject turns out to be those mysterious `crop circles' that have periodically dotted the world's landscape for the past three decades or so. Shyamalan centers his story around a Pennsylvania farmer named Graham Ness (Mel Gibson) - actually FATHER Graham Ness, since we discover early on that the man is a former minister who has recently become an atheist after the sudden death of his wife in a grisly car accident (though his denomination is unspecified, one wonders why his former parishioners refer to him as `Father' and ask him to listen to their confessions when he was obviously NOT a Roman Catholic priest). Graham lives with his two young children and his younger brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix). One day they awaken to discover that some crop circles have mysteriously appeared in their own fields overnight. As more and more of these strange images begin to spring up around the world, the thought that the earth may be facing an invasion from hostile extraterrestrial forces starts to take hold.
It would be hard to overestimate just how effective Shyamalan is at generating suspense throughout the film. For close to ninety minutes, we sit utterly spellbound as the story unravels itself, never quite sure where the author is taking us, but being more than willing to go to wherever that destination might be, fully confident that the author will not disappoint us (that turns out not to be the case, but more about that later). Shyamalan has the artist's touch of being able to terrify his audience more through anticipation and indirection than through scenes of actual violence and carnage. The creepiness of the imagery is what makes all this work. The director can take the most mundane object and infuse it with feelings of portentousness and dread. One thinks, in particular, of Phoenix staring into an ordinary cornfield, made menacing by the howling wind and the fact that we know something sinister may be lurking deep within it ready to pounce out at any moment. Or of Gibson confronting an ordinary pantry door, behind which may be a creature too terrifying to even imagine, let alone do battle with. The sound effects in the film are extraordinary, heightening the suspense tenfold by allowing us to picture the threat in terms that most frighten us. Actually, Shyamalan reaches back to some pretty impressive earlier works for his imagery in this film. There are echoes of `E.T.' in Gibson's journey through a cornfield at night, flashlight in hand, as he searches for a mysterious creature he has not yet seen but knows most likely exists. We are reminded of `The Birds' and `Night of the Living Dead' when the family begins boarding up the house as a protection against the supernatural threat from the outside. And, of course, there are elements of `Close Encounters' in the rural setting and of `Independence Day' and `War of the Worlds' in the sight of alien spaceships parking themselves above cities filled with terrified and bewildered citizens. Yet, each of these images comes across not as slavish thievery, but as heartfelt homages to some of the most effective suspense films ever made.
One intriguing aspect of the film is that Shyamalan does not provide us with a prologue to his story. We are afforded no glimpses into the `normal' everyday life of this family before all this begins to happen. From the very first moment of the film, we are plunged into the nightmare scenario. This corresponds nicely to Shyamalan's other two films in that he likes to create worlds that seem somehow off-kilter right from the very start. The generation of atmosphere is clearly one of this filmmaker's greatest strengths.
Yet, given all these undeniable virtues, what exactly is it that keeps `Signs' from being the masterpiece it so obviously wants to be - and that it falls just short of becoming? I think the problem is that Shyamalan does such a fantastic job raising our expectations that we just can't help but be disappointed when the somewhat flatfooted resolution is ultimately unspooled before us. For all his intelligence and talent, the author can't quite seem to get his theme and his storyline to coalesce into a profound, meaningful whole. Graham Ness is obviously a good man caught in a major crisis of faith. He has come to doubt not only the efficacy of prayer but of the existence of God Himself. So far, so good. But where does Shymalan end up really taking this theme? Nowhere really, and that is the problem. The fantastic, sci-fi plotting ultimately seems too elaborate to be just making the simple point that life is not merely a series of random chance happenings and that Graham needs to go back to believing in God again. All of this just to show THAT? Frankly, any number of events could have led Graham to this epiphany. It wouldn't require extraterrestrials to do it. Given the devices used to get us there, the storyline starts to seem arbitrary and the resolution PALTRY (which was certainly NOT the case with `The Sixth Sense'). And in many ways, the final shot - of Graham once again donning his clerical collar - seems to ring untrue, since if the world really were to be made cognizant of the existence of highly developed life existing on other planets, wouldn't people be more inclined to turn away from the old time religious belief systems, which would most likely seem antiquated and unexplanatory, in favor of some new theological paradigms? In this aspect alone, the ending rings strangely hollow.
Shyamalan has evoked extraordinary performances from his gifted cast, particularly from Gibson who hits just the right note of bewilderment, sadness and fatherly devotion to turn Graham into a fully developed, three-dimensional character. Joaquin Phoenix provides humor and strength as Graham's devoted younger brother, and Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin all but steal the picture as Graham's resourceful and savvy children. James Newton Howard has provided a variegated and haunting score, often echoing the great work by that all-time master of suspense music, Bernard Herrmann.

`Signs,' in the final analysis, is a flawed but still tremendously powerful and entertaining film. Don't let the disappointing ending color your overall impression of the work. Despite its imperfections, `Signs' clearly emerges as one of the outstanding films of 2002.