A pretty decent flick...

Rating: 8/10 (17 January 2006)

With an increasing fan base and a seemingly inherent penchant for making pictures that arouse discussion (whether it be positive or negative), M.Night Shyamalan seems to be making quite a name for himself in the Hollywood sphere and is well on his way to becoming one of the greatest directors in history. Not to say he's there yet, but in ten years or so, I truly believe that this man's soft directorial style will be considered genius and his uniqueness for suspense will be rated and compared to that of the master himself - Alfred Hitchcock.
"Signs" is a story about a fractured family's reponse to a bunch of mysterious crop circles that begin to enclose their small farm-house in a remote village on the outskirts of Philadelphia. The film progresses as crop circles begin to appear all across the world, spreading mass panic amongst the populations and indicating an extra-terrestrial threat who's intentions are anything but benevolent. Mel Gibson is excellent in his title role, and Joaquin Pheonix's brilliance shines through as always. Further credit goes to the two main children in the movie - one of whom is a future klidden Rory Culkin - who provide a sense of fear throughout the picture and allow a constant reminder of stakes.
The film itself is pretty decent, serving up the suspense that we've grown to accept as the trademark style of Shyamalan himself, in his soft and elegant directorial style that has garnered critical acclaim for both this film and, especially, the Sixth Sense. And in its direction, Signs never falls short. For a fairly inexperienced mainstream director, Shyamalan has an immensely strong grasp over the medium and portrays this through his ability to direct both the actors and the action on screen. Once again, his choice of elegance in the most suspenseful and shocking of scenes is brilliant and strikes many different chords at once - surely a quality that raises him above many other directors who have attempted the genre.
The cinematography and the editing also serve their purposes in the ultimate aim also - suspense - however, it is within a slightly patchy script that this film falls short. To be honest, it seems that Shyamalan's enthusiasm for directing the film was for more substantial than the enthusiasm he exuberated when writing the screenplay. For one, everything happens too fast. Whereas his other films have allowed it to play out a little longer, and let the crux of the story take as much time as the characters demand, the crucial parts of this film remain a bit too rushed. Perhaps more alien encounters would have dampened the suspense of the "what's gonna happen now" factor, however I still feel that despite all the film's other allusions to faith, fate and God (which were tied in rather nicely), we wanted to see just a little bit more of some of the good stuff - not the sappy stuff. That would have made the film perfect, but in the end we are left with what could have been as good as the Sixth Sense or any Hitchcockian thriller, but its in its steadfast simplicity in alien encounters that the film falls short. And don't misinterpret it, as I am fully aware that at certain points the alien aspect is deliberately overshadowed by the theological elements of Gibson's loss of faith and his hatred of God, but I still feel we could have been shown more.
And I wish we were...