Signs

Rating: 7/10 (19 September 2006)

Signs (2002) Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) has made an astounding discovery: giant crop circles have mysteriously appeared in his cornfields overnight, and all the evidence suggests that they are extra-terrestrial or aliens in nature. Without warning, these unexplainable signs begin to pop up all over the globe, and the entire world is suddenly faced with a unique event: aliens from another world may be coming, and no one knows their intentions. Hess is an ex-reverend who experiences a huge crisis of faith after the horrific and untimely death of his wife. Living with Hess are three members of his broken family: his younger brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), a failed baseball player who lacks discipline, which kept him out of the major league; his son Morgan (Rory Culkin), a young boy afflicted with health problems; and his daughter Bo (Abigail Breslin), a little girl who is curiously paranoid. When Hess and his kin are confronted with the threat of an alien invasion, the failures and heartbreaks of the family comes to the surface in a volatile mixture of blame, guilt, and anger.
Questions of faith, belief, and hope are all raised and explored in what is a thrillingly, terrifying, and satisfying film. Yes, this movie is about aliens, and yes this movie is intense, scary, and all the other great things you may or may not expect out of this type of film. Nevertheless, this movie is also about faith and family. Signs is about finding meaning and hope whatever we might face in life.
M. Night Shyamalan is the unthinkable. You can never expect an original film out of him. Either you like his movies or you do not. In any of the films in which he directs he pulls the twist and turn technique. This unique technique should tell you that he is by far out of the ordinary when it comes to directing a movie. You can predict all you want from his films but your prediction will never come out the way you thought it would.