Signs (**1/2)
review by Jon
Waterman
On a small town farm, some crop circles have appeared. The
local officials are chalking it up to the hooligan kids playing
pranks. After all, everyone knows it’s a hoax, right?
Reverend Hess tries to calm his young kids down when more circles
appear not only in their cornfields, but also simultaneously
around the world. Are the local boys in on some sort of worldwide
sham, or could something else be going on?
Writer/director M. Night Shyamalan must be running out of
ideas. If he really wanted to make a movie about crop circles,
he’s about twenty-five years too late. There’s
a reason we don’t hear about them anymore. Everyone knows
how they are done and it’s not fun anymore. But he’s
not really making a movie about crop circles. It’s about
the reactions to them and all of that stuff. It’s just
a lame cover story for the emotional core. I also didn’t
like that he created this hype and hysteria within the film.
Why mess with the twist in the plot? Just put it all out in
the open, and let the characters deal with that and it would
have been just as effective without some of the disappointment.
The problem is he thinks he has to put a surprise in each movie
to stay consistent with himself. If he really wants to grow
as a writer (and maybe he doesn’t), then he should start
exploring different avenues and storytelling methods.
The similarities between this film and “Night of the
Living Dead” are pretty apparent, but I think “NLD” does
a better job handling the paranoia and the changes in personality.
There’s more media coverage here, but I don’t know
how much it actually fuels the audience. It certainly is the
main argument behind the characters’ moves. What it does
do is allow us to see that this is in fact not an isolated
incident while allowing us to stay isolated with the family.
There are a lot of issues of faith here. The dad used to be
a Reverend in this religious community. All the recent events
have taken a toll on the entire family. The two kids are obsessed
with learning about what’s going on. By the way, the
kids don’t act normal. They have this creepy “Children
of the Corn” thing going on. I guess that’s what
the farm life does to some people. It’s interesting to
see the emotional breakdowns that go on and the irrationality
that can stem from what could be an innocent event. Even though
I’ve criticized the storytelling, there is a worthwhile
emotional storyline here that doesn’t deserve to be clouded
in the supernatural fluff.
M. Night could be a great director. He has a reasonable command
over the visual aspect and he works well with the actors to
get what he wants from them. He just needs to break away from
this fake twist ending stuff. He needs to stop hiding behind
this standard he’s set for himself, put everything out
in the open right away and let it all develop naturally from
there. That way you can avoid disappointment and have a more
solid movie. This won’t blow anyone away, so don’t
expect a surprise of any kind and you may be able to enjoy
it more.
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