Review: M. Night Shyamalan made many great genre movies to launch his career in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but none are as quirky, silly, and downright wholesome as Signs, which brings a family together under extraordinary circumstances. Mel Gibson and Joaquin Phoenix lead a small cast of great performers reckoning with alien lifeforms reaching Earth.
Signs Review
I’d argue Signs is M. Night Shyamalan’s best movie – the one that blends his campy tone and unwavering thematic consistencies to the finest results and with the most fun. When taken with a grain of salt and absorbed understanding its own absurdity, Signs is his most rewarding film.
And it also boasts one of his strangest casts, using Mel Gibson (Braveheart, Mad Max, Chicken Run) and Joaquin Phoenix (Joker, Napoleon, Beau is Afraid) as a duo of male parental figures to two young children Morgan and Bo (a very young Rory Culkin [Scream 4, Columbus] and Abigail Breslin [Little Miss Sunshine, Zombieland], respectively). Graham (Gibson) is left to care for his kids following the abrupt, tragic death of his wife in a traffic accident.
That relationship has been strained since her death as Graham has given up his faith in religion and struggles to connect with his kids in a meaningful way. This disconnect is only duct taped together by the presence of Merrill (Phoenix), Graham’s younger brother who moved home to help his sibling.
The family begins to experience supernatural occurrences, like large scale crop circles appearing in their cornfields. But the family soon uncovers an extraterrestrial invasion when similar events spring up around the world.
It’s the exact threat (albeit an existential threat to humanity that turns Signs into a science fiction genre film) that could help bring this family back together and reckon with their past that they’ve closed off. Gibson plays the tortured father to great lengths, both understated and loud in different ways. The screen presence speaks for itself while he murmurs his way back into his kids’ lives as a worthy father figure.
Joaquin Phoenix is uniquely entertaining here, playing one of his more outgoing characters. He gets many of the laugh lines and goofier set pieces as the younger brother inherently fascinated in the idea of aliens landing on Earth. It’s a performance that doesn’t necessarily need the method-acting efforts, but it’s captivating and convincing regardless.
The two children, Culkin and Breslin, are also unusually great for child performances. For a movie like Signs that relies heavily on the performances of two children throughout, M. Night Shyamalan (Old, Knock at the Cabin, Trap) is able to get the best out of everyone.
Shyamalan has had many movies from the late 1990s and early 2000s live on in the culture for decades, but none have been as inherently intriguing and emotionally rewarding as Signs, which in my opinion, remains his best movie.
Rating: 9/10
Genre: Drama, Horror, Mystery, Science Fiction, Thriller
Watch Signs (2002) on Max and VOD
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