SIGNS

[MARCBLEE]

Check out my review Friday nite.

[Werewolf]

We´re looking forward to see it!

[MARCBLEE]

SIGNS

Synopsis: Farmer Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) awakes one morning to find mysterious crop circles carved into his cornfield. He initially suspects pranksters and the following night sees someone outside the house. He and his brother Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix) try and catch the intruder but are eluded when the person jumps on the roof, runs over the house, then disappears into the cornfield. The next day reports of crop circles appearing all across the world dominate the news and Graham's son, Morgan (Rory Culkin), and daughter, Bo (Abigail Breslin), become convinced that aliens are coming. Soon, Merrill agrees, but Graham must confront his past before gaining the strength to face what news reports and his own eyes have told him -- that something is happening...

The dogs are the first to know. They don't see "them." But they sense their presence.

The humans have seen the signs -- the carefully crushed corn in neat, cryptic circles. We've puzzled over them and explained them away.

But the dogs know better. And when the end comes, they'll be the ones with "told you so" looks on their faces.

Signs, M. Night Shyamalan's latest exercise in creepiness, is a triumph of mood over logic, of faith over reason. It's a cerebral aliens-as-boogeymen thriller that pits an isolated rural family against the green hordes from beyond the stars.

This film scared the “living crap” outta me and I don’t like to be frightened.  Back in the 80’s, I watched HALLOWEEN at the theaters with my hands covering my face!  I don’t like to be frightened.  I’ll fight Bin Laden hand to hand BUT DON’T SNEAK UP ON ME!!!!

Mel Gibson stars as Graham Hess, a former Episcopal minister who lost his faith the night he lost his wife in an accident. He teaches his children, Morgan and Bo (Rory Culkin and Abigail Breslin), and his younger brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix), that reason and learning are what can "take the strangeness away." Not religion.

His crisis of faith isn't helped when things start happening to their cornfields. It begins with crop circles "made up by guys who never had a girlfriend," Merrill says. "Nerds made them 25 years ago. New nerds are making them now."   Hmmm……I wonder if he was talking about us STAR TREK fans?

But it isn't nerds. Not this time. And the weirdness expands to include strange sounds in the night and climaxes with the 24-hour TV news telling them that strange lights and circles are enveloping the world. It looks like the alien conspiracy buffs were right. It looks like the end is near.

Shyamalan borrows from Hitchcock, Poltergeist, Night of the Living Dead and The Blair Witch Project for this, the first genuinely hair-raising thriller since Blair Witch. The music is Psycho-esque, sounding much like Bernard Herrman’s work and the terror heightened by staging the most frightening scenes in fleeting moments, leaving our imaginations to do their worst.

The mysterious maze of maize that is a cornfield, captured in everything from North by Northwest to Children of the Corn and Field of Dreams, is one-upped in Shyamalan's chilling vision. The atmosphere is as doom-laden as the post-nuclear weeper, The Day After.

The TV becomes a conduit of terror, as in Blair Witch, as scary events are presented in the always-trustworthy, more immediate grainy, jerky, TV news-as-it-happens format.

And all the while, Father Graham flashes back to the night he gave up on God and tries to piece together the meaning of it all. Why would aliens who are invading the whole world bother with one farmhouse in upscale Bucks County, Pa.? Gibson, who has made faith something he's not ashamed to display and wrestle with on the screen, is terrific in this part.

Signs has a surface silliness that points one to a more allegorical interpretation of what's happening. Is this the end, or one man's fever dream of what the end might be?

I did have a small problem with this film because I was led to believe, up until a certain moment, that this may be one of those TWILIGHT ZONE style endings considering what I’ve seen so far.  I went on to think that maybe this could be an illusionary type movie with everyone waking up in bed only to find that it was all a dream.  Boy was I wrong!

Shyamalan has also shown himself a master of quiet horror. This has the chilling tone of Sixth Sense. But as in his Unbreakable, he weighs down a genre film with crushing intellectual conundrums, and the genre can't quite support the weight.

Still, it's great that he's putting so much effort into giving us something to chew on long after the credits have rolled. It's a less literal Left Behind, a more curious Contact. Contact sought explanations. Left Behind gave dogmatic answers. Signs simply raises the question anew.

The truth may still be out there. Signs has the cheek to suggest that you might find the answer in a cornfield.

I must admit that I left the theater a bit disappointed.  The obvious turned out to be not that at all and I wanted that now known fact to evolve into a explanation more in depth than what they explained.  I thought more of THE WAR OF THE WORLDS and V when I got up out of my seat.

The “secret weapon” used as a final solution left me with many unanswered questions.  I see our enemy returning, but then I may give away too much of this movie if I don’t just shut up here.

My Score: 7 out of 10.