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Signs (2002)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:218
Fresh:161
Rotten:57
Average Rating:6.8/10
Consensus: With Signs, Shyamalan proves once again an expert at building suspense and giving audiences the chills.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for some frightening moments
Runtime: 1 hr 46 mins
Genre: Science-Fiction/Fantasy
Theatrical Release:Aug 2, 2002 Wide
Box Office: $227,935,522
Synopsis: It's contaminated. That's what pint-sized Bo (Abigail Breslin) says about every glass of water that she tries to drink, then rejects. This is just one in a long list of strange occurrences that are... It's contaminated. That's what pint-sized Bo (Abigail Breslin) says about every glass of water that she tries to drink, then rejects. This is just one in a long list of strange occurrences that are changing the lives of the Hess family. Things go awry when Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) and his brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), awake early one morning to find the dogs barking and the children--Bo, and her brother Morgan (Rory Culkin)--wandering bleary eyed in the corn fields. They discover a pattern of perfectly carved crop circles left the night before. Trying not to overreact, Graham ignores the media frenzy that has permeated all television and radio stations, and even shrugs off the oddly familiar information that Morgan reads in his book about extraterrestrials invading earth. The real challenge for Graham is to find the faith he needs to pull himself, and his family, through this unexplainable series of events. SIGNS is the long-anticipated film from writer-director M. Night Shyamalan (THE SIXTH SENSE, UNBREAKABLE), a suspenseful and uniquely chilling family story. [More]
Starring: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin
Starring: Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, Abigail Breslin, Cherry Jones, M. Night Shyamalan, Patricia Kalember
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Director: M. Night Shyamalan
Screenwriter: M. Night Shyamalan
Producer: Frank Marshall, Sam Mercer
Composer: James Newton Howard
Studio: Touchstone Pictures
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Reviews for Signs
An anti-Independence Day, a cousin of Close Encounters, but most of all, a well-modulated, dread-laden, faith-based mystery. [Blu-Ray]
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.
Shyamalan is technically a superb film-maker, for all that he's picked up most of his tricks from Spielberg and Hitchcock.
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.
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.
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.
Signs may be lightweight and fragile in comparison to Sense and even to Unbreakable for that matter, but nobody can deny the eye-popping quality to this exquisite soul-searching drama.
A great movie. People went to Signs expecting to see intestines, and what they got was heart, and a lot to think about.
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