Pure cinematic terror and fun!

Rating: 10/10 (30 August 2002)

Shyamalan has done it again, this time with "Signs", and I consider it to be his best effort. This undertaking proves to be much more entertaining than his other two endeavors, "The Sixth Sense", and "Unbreakable". And although I loved these two films, "Signs" surpasses them immeasurably. The basic plot is that a family living on a farm discover crop circles in their fields, the first of many bizarre occurances. Like a good episode of "The Twilight Zone", the movie keeps the ambiguity flowing dramatically throughout. Mel Gibson is fantastic. The actor plays a man who seems always together, even when fantastic things are happening all around him. Joaquin Phoenix is good too. He is sort of where most of the comic relief comes from in the movie. That is another thing about the movie: it is very funny. Typically, movies that try to be funny AND scary end up being a big mess. "Signs" is genuinely hilarious. But then it will turn around and be absolutely horrifying and sometimes disturbing. It succeeds. Many have complained about the film's religious undertones overwhelming the sci-fi premise. This simply is not true. The two themes go hand-in-hand with eachother as one story. Shyamalan has eased a bit off the artsy camera angles, something I kind of miss. The dialogue and characters are more realistic in "Signs", and therefore makes your feelings for the people much stronger. Howard's music is not very versatile, but he has many variations of the theme and it is very effective and makes the movie even creepier. "Signs" is probably the most pop-culture-friendly Shyamalan movie, but considering how good this one turned out, maybe the other two needed some of that. I loved this movie. Everything about it was lovely and entertaining. Heck, even the kids were excellent! I can't wait for M. Night's next project to crop up! 10/10