It's Not Like They Didn't Warn Us. This film is up there with Shyamalan's other masterpiece - The Sixth Sense'.

Rating: Null/10 (8 October 2003)

M. Night Shyamalan's Signs', is a brilliantly crafted movie, showing just why he is a successful director in Hollywood today. All of Shyamalan's movies have evoked a lot of discussion as to whether they are good or bad for the public that see them, with that decision up for you to decide. In this great thriller of 2002, something is not quite right in the world, signs that something might change our world for ever. Aliens have always been in our thoughts for many years now, but do they really exist?

The Hess family live in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. One morning they wake to find a 500 foot crop circle in their backyard. Graham Hess and his family are told extra-terrestrials are responsible for the sign in their field. They watch, with growing dread, at the news of crop circles being found all over the world. Signs is the emotional story of one family on one farm as they encounter the terrifying last moments of life as the world is being invaded. Get ready for a close encounter of the scared kind...
What do you immediately think of when you hear such phrases as crop circles', little green men' or beings from another planet'?. All of these could be construed as signs' that something is out there. That was the feeling I got from watching this film. Signs' was written, produced and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, who is brilliant at making one new movie experience after another. He puts all the pieces together quite deliberately, but so carefully at the same time, that I feel it is difficult not appreciate each movie experience we get with him.

The film's story has many elements that make it great. Its emotion is so clear that you have to be affected by it, as does the tension, which is as thrilling as I have seen in a movie in a long time. The other clever tools used in this movie, include the way Shyamalan shows us these scary looking aliens, with the confrontations between Graham and the alien at the vet's house and between Merrill and the alien in the Hess living room, unforgettable to say the least. Furthermore, the use of news broadcasts is another clever device, which gives the movie even more tension, especially the broadcast showing a sighting at a children's birthday party. Shyamalan also created some great characters for the movie. Sure, there might not be many people in the film, but the people that you meet are quite remarkable.
The main character in Signs' is Father Graham Hess (Mel Gibson), a priest that has lost his faith, for reasons that I will let the movie explain. For me, it seems ironic that the main character in the movie is a priest, as they, like all believers of God, are continuing to look for signs that show us why we believe in God in the first place. Graham even admits that these events might be the end of the world'. Gibson shows himself to be a character full of emotion, sorrow and anger. We discover that local vet, Ray Reddy (M. Night. Shyamalan), has caused a lot of the problems for the town's priest.
Living with Graham are his two kids, Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin) and his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix). Morgan is smart kid, knowing a lot of the ideas surrounding other life-forms', while Bo is constantly paranoid by the drinking of water. In fact Bo is a character that shows signs are appearing that things are not quite right in the world. They all live on a corn and wheat farm where they have discovered the possibility of extra-terrestrials having visited them at their part of the earth.

All these actors have to be commended for their performances, as they continue on the feeling that Shyamalan wanted us to feel, a very eerie, depressive and sometimes scary experience. The performances by Culkin and Breslin are truly great. Both show that they can handle themselves in a complex story, only enhancing what sort of movie that we have. Credit in this area also has to go to Shyamalan, as his choices for these roles were crucial to the final make-up of the movie. Also, the way this man can direct young actors is an outstanding talent that I hope continues.

A lot of the film is very silent, another deliberate ploy by the director to set his audience up in different way. Roger Ebert said in his review of Signs - I cannot think of a movie where silence is scarier and inaction is more disturbing'. Many movies that we see, feel they need heaps of noise and action going on, but not here. The sounds (or lack of them), makes Signs' an even better movie experience. But the times that the movie does require noise, we get it through its powerful soundtrack, the perfect feeling. The score for Signs' was composed by John Newton Howard.
I first watched Signs' with a friend who was quite adamant about his opinion of the movie. His words were I did not like Signs', it is a film that builds-up to nothing'. Now while my friend is entitled to his opinion, I have to say I disagree wholeheartedly with him about that. What he has described is essentially what Signs' is all about. The true revelation of the film for me is not only how it ends, but what it shows and what we experience through out. Shyamalan has made a film that only he could, because he can. In a time where Hollywood is quite predictable with its movie-making, along comes a guy that breaks all the rules, for all the right reasons. Signs' is a movie that I can only describe as one in a million', a film where its build-up is the pay off. For that strange reason, I am a big fan.
CMRS gives Signs': 5 (Brilliant Film)