More than any other filmmaker working today, M. Night Shyamalan connects with his audience and his characters in a totally unique way to transport us so effortlessly into the world of 'what ifs.'
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
Maybe I feel let down because I'd appreciate someone presenting a halfway credible explanation for the crop circles and this does nothing more than to drain away some of their fascination in a commercially successful maneuver to exploit.
[Shyamalan's] a skilled flashlight-guy, and movie theaters are his campfires.
Shyamalan wants to be the metaphysical poet of movies, but he's dangerously close to becoming its O. Henry.
If you can, take your eyes off the screen for a moment and look around. You’ll see scared people.
There are now two signs that M. Night Shyamalan’s debut feature sucked up all he has to give to the mystic genres of cinema: Unbreakable and Signs.
Using the theorem that less is more, Shyamalan creates a psychologically frightening movie taut with emotional tension and ripe with fear.
The movie is almost completely lacking in suspense, surprise and consistent emotional conviction.
The religious statement is so out of keeping with the tone of the rest of the movie that it seems unintentional.
Without ever touching on a cliche (except to poke fun at it), Shyamalan skillfully builds the film on several layers -- personal redemption, family drama, community-in-crisis, world on the brink.
Shayamalan clearly thinks that Signs is important and mythic. In reality, it's a well-crafted creepy movie with appallingly simplistic religiosity grafted onto it.
M. Night Shyamalan uses ham-fisted coincidences to build, Thomas Aquinas-style, an a posteriori proof of the existence of God. No, really.
The kind of suspenseful thrilling movie that I haven't seen in a very long time.
Despite its sincere acting, Signs is just another unoriginal run of the mill sci-fi film with a flimsy ending and lots of hype.
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