Signs (2002)
Average Rating: 6.8/10
Reviews Counted: 226
Fresh: 167 | Rotten: 59
With Signs, Shyamalan proves once again an expert at building suspense and giving audiences the chills.
Average Rating: 6.1/10
Critic Reviews: 42
Fresh: 25 | Rotten: 17
With Signs, Shyamalan proves once again an expert at building suspense and giving audiences the chills.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.2/5
User Ratings: 846,126
Movie Info
Following the smash hit The Sixth Sense (1999) and the under-performing follow-up Unbreakable (2000), directing phenom M. Night Shyamalan returns to the summer box office landscape that served as the backdrop for his cinematic breakthrough. In Signs, another paranormal outing for the writer-director, Shyamalan explores the eerie implications of a 500-foot crop circle that mysteriously appears on the Bucks County, PA farm of reverend Graham Hess (Mel Gibson). As Hess and his family (Joaquin
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Cast
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Mel Gibson
Graham Hess -
Joaquin Phoenix
Merrill Hess -
Cherry Jones
Officer Caroline Paski -
Rory Culkin
Morgan Hess -
Abigail Breslin
Bo Hess -
Patricia Kalember
Colleen Hess -
M. Night Shyamalan
Ray Reddy -
Ted Sutton
Cunningham -
Merritt Wever
Tracey -
Lanny Flaherty
Mr. Nathan -
Marion McCorry
Mrs. Nathan -
Michael Showalter
Lionel -
Rhonda Overby
Sarah Hughes
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All Critics (228) | Top Critics (42) | Fresh (167) | Rotten (59) | DVD (51)
Individual sequences generate an eerie tension that's always deflated, creating a jarring stop-and-go rhythm, and the atmospheric trickery never strays beyond a lot of smoke and mirrors.
Top CriticShyamalan is technically a superb film-maker, for all that he's picked up most of his tricks from Spielberg and Hitchcock.
A refreshing summer movie.
Shyamalan wants to be the metaphysical poet of movies, but he's dangerously close to becoming its O. Henry.
The same old same old: dull and recycled, with no surprises.
The movie is almost completely lacking in suspense, surprise and consistent emotional conviction.
Excellent, but has some extreme tension and peril.
Shyamalan is 0 for 3, giving us another incredible movie.
An anti-Independence Day, a cousin of Close Encounters, but most of all, a well-modulated, dread-laden, faith-based mystery. [Blu-Ray]
Crap circles.
Mr. Shayamalan is a gifted writer and filmmaker. He definitely has more great films in his future. However, he may need to take a step away from the paranormal thriller.
M. Night Shyamalan's Signs is Close Encounters of the Corny Kind.
I come away from Signs exhilarated by Shyamalan's skill at keeping his audience guessing.
The one good thing about it is that it's over in one hour and 47 minutes. The bad thing is to think what a terrible waste it was of an hour and 47 minutes.
A gripping and well-made thriller that preserves Shyamalan's winning streak and shows us, as all the best films do, a world that we're familiar with and believe in, and yet we've never seen, and by which we're endlessly fascinated.
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Shyamalan fancies himself a philosopher whose stories have deep and important meanings that need to be conveyed to audiences as slowly and heavy-handedly as possible.
Gibson gives one of the best performances of his career...
One may never get the answer that they seek, but they will be scared out of the wits when searching for one.
Shyamalan has done it again. He's taken a well-used genre, the alien invasion, and given it a spin that focuses on the human psyche rather than the surrounding events.
How apt for a film called Signs that Shyamalan should have plusses and minuses the whole way through.
Being known for "Big Twist Endings" may label you a one-trick pony, but one trick is better than no tricks.
[Shyamalan's] treatment doesn't always make perfect sense, but what his film lacks in logic is more than made up for in atmosphere.
Audience Reviews for Signs
Super Reviewer
Even if the pace here is a bit faster here than in his two earlier films, The Sixth Sense and Unbreakable, Shyamalan still remembers that characters are more important than any setpiece. Signs is much more film about family which have met a great loss recently than a story about aliens from outer space. It has this nice 50's twilight zone vibe in it but it has a more poetic side in it too. You could say that Signs is even a beautiful film. At least Shyamalan's story is definetly touching and in the end very emotional one too.
Sure, some of the dialogue is typically heavy like in his earlier films, but the beauty lies in the way that Shyamalan constructs his film and when Signs reaches it's complex and and ambitious third act it rises into a new heights as a film and nearly becomes something closer to an masterpiece.
There is this certain three act structure in all of Shyamalan's films which keeps repeating and while it is effective way to tell his stories, it is time for Shyamalan to get rid off his twist-ending expectations which is becoming a more and more of an burden.
With dynamite score by James Newton Howard and brilliant camerawork by talented Tak Fujimoto, Signs is Shyamalan's most easiest film to approach and to enjoy. It is closest thing of a pure entertainment in his career and never loses it's grip in building a tension. Flawed it might be, but it also has bucket loads of tension and emotionally strong moments.
Super Reviewer
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- Graham Hess: Caroline, please stop calling me Father.
- Officer Caroline Paski: What's the matter?
- Morgan Hess: I can't hear my children.
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- Bo Hess: There's a monster outside my bedroom. Can I get a glass of water?
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- Graham Hess: It's happening...
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- Ray Reddy: I've never fallen asleep while driving before. It had to be at that right moment. That 10-15 seconds when I passed her walking. It's like it was meant to be.
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- Morgan Hess: Listen, Bo. This is very important. Everything people have written in science books is about to change. The history of the world's future is on the TV right now. We need to record this so you can show your children this tape and say you were there. For your children, Bo.
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- Officer Caroline Paski: How certain are you that this was a male?
- Merrill Hess: Oh, I don't know any girls who could run like that.
- Officer Caroline Paski: I don't know, Merrill. I've seen some of those women on the Olympics. They can run like the wind.
- Merrill Hess: This guy got on our roof in like a second. Our roof is ten feet high.
- Officer Caroline Paski: They have women's high-jumping in the Olympics. They've got these Scandinavian women who could jump clean over me.
Discussion Forum
| Topic | Last Post | Replies |
|---|---|---|
| Am I the only one who was bored? | 56 days ago | 7 |
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Movie: ID: 10253 Title: Signs Release Date: 2002-08-02 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 3 Status: 1
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