Aug. 04, 2002 - 2:17 am
so many good movies at the theater this summer. i keep seeing the same crappy previews over and over and complaining about them over and over. but the movies are great. this is the new M. Night Shyamalan film. he directed and wrote both The Sixth Sense (1999) and Unbreakable (2000). an interesting description of his plots is mentioned on his biography on the IMDb: "Many of his films involve two ordinary individuals with extraordinary abilities or events happening to them. One of the people either has connections to a child or is a child, and the one connected to the child is always having marital difficulties."
i'm sure you've been bombarded as i have, by advertising for this film which concerns the appearance of crop circles on a small family farm in Pennsylvania. you really don't see many more characters than that. there's Mel Gibson, his brother played by Joaquin Phoenix, his son played by Rory Culkin, and his young daughter who is a newcomer to Hollywood (Abigail Breslin). the crop circles aren't central to the film, but they are just a sign of things to come. the appearance of many of them all over the globe simultaneously leads people to believe that we will soon be invaded by aliens. i guess i can't really say much more than that. too bad.
it was interesting to see Rory Culkin again in a film. he was seen most recently in You Can Count On Me (2000). no, that's not Macaulay. this kid wasn't even a year old when Home Alone (1990) came out. and apparently they originally wanted Mark Ruffalo to play Mel Gibson's character. Mark Ruffalo was in You Can Count On Me with Rory. weird weird.
this is probably one of the funniest scary movies you'll ever see. Shyamalan has a very good sense of humor. i was a little disturbed by how much screen time he himself gets in this film. if you've seen his other films you know this director always likes to play some small but important role in his films. sort of like Alfred Hitchcock always making an appearance (although his were unnecessary to the plot). speaking of Hitchcock, i love the opening credits and the soundtrack to the film. they're very reminiscent of some of Hitchcock's films.
i don't think you can say that all of Shyamalan's films have a "twist" at the end. cause Unbreakable really didn't have that. it's more like a revelation or epiphany. Signs has that. a revelation. it doesn't really have a twist.
so yeah, signs is a very good film with a few flaws, but they're forgivable. go see it. it's probably scarier on the big screen.