Signs (film)
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- This article is about the Signs movie. For other references to signs, see Signs. For other uses of the word sign, see Sign.
| Signs | |
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| Directed by | M. Night Shyamalan |
| Produced by | Frank Marshall Sam Mercer M. Night Shyamalan |
| Written by | M. Night Shyamalan |
| Starring | Mel Gibson Joaquin Phoenix Rory Culkin Abigail Breslin |
| Editing by | Barbara Tulliver |
| Distributed by | Touchstone Pictures |
| Release date(s) | August 2, 2002 |
| Running time | 106 min. |
| Language | English |
| Budget | USD$72,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $408,247,917 |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Signs is a 2002 science fiction thriller film written, produced, and directed by M. Night Shyamalan starring Mel Gibson, Joaquin Phoenix, Rory Culkin, and Abigail Breslin. Although the plot revolves around aliens and crop circles, producer Frank Marshall said, "It's really about human emotions set in motion by a supernatural event." The film received generally positive critical reception and was one of the highest grossing films of 2002.
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[edit] Plot
The Hess family lives on a farm in Doylestown, Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Graham Hess (Mel Gibson) is a former Episcopal priest who lost his faith in God after the death of his wife Colleen, in a horrific traffic accident caused by a veterinarian named Ray Reddy (played by M. Night Shyamalan). Graham also cannot come to terms with his son Morgan's (Rory Culkin) asthma condition which causes great suffering. No longer practicing religiously, Graham and Morgan live with Graham's daughter, Bo (Abigail Breslin), who has a strange habit of leaving unfinished glasses of water around the house, and his brother, Merill (Joaquin Phoenix), a former college baseball star who never made it to the big leagues and now seems adrift.
Things are fairly uneventful in Graham's life until a mysterious crop circle appears in his cornfield. Its origin and purpose is unknown; some townspeople speculate that it may be a prank while a few others think that it may have been created by intelligent alien life-forms. In the mean time reports of violent animal behaviour spread across town, and one of the Hess' dogs tries to attack Bo and Morgan.
As the story progresses, it is clear that Graham's farm is under watch; one night, he and Merrill chase a tall, dark figure who was spying on them from the roof of their barn. The mysterious being disappears into the crops, moving faster and disappearing far easier than anyone can explain. Soon Graham and his family are shocked to learn that similar crop circles have suddenly appeared all over the world in ways too quickly to be merely a grand, elaborate hoax. Morgan takes a liking for a sheriffs' radio walkie-talkie and she tells him that he can use a baby monitor but it will only work one way. He finds Bo has an old baby monitor in the basement and decides to take it into town with them. On their return home, strange noises resembling bubbling and clicking come from the baby monitor. Morgan, believing the sound to be aliens talking, climbs on the roof to get a better signal; the noises soon go away.
That evening, Graham, investigating the other German Shepherd dog's barking, goes into the crop circle to investigate. There he hears the unusual clicking noises and glimpses what appears to be a long green leg disappearing into the corn. Startled, he sprints back to the house before looking back. He then tells Bo, Morgan and Merril that they can turn on the television which he had objected to earlier. They turn on the news to discover that large, mysterious and unidentifiable lights have been spotted over Mexico City.
That night, Graham has a conversation with Merill about his own faith. It's demonstrated that Graham doesn't believe in God anymore, after the accident. He then says that there are, "two kinds of people, those who see signs, miracles, and those who see coincidences. Which kind are you?" Merill asks him the same question, Graham does not answer him.
Later, there is a flashback in which we see Graham approaching the scene of an accident in a clerical suit. He then finds his wife pinned to a tree by a truck, and the officer tells him that his wife won't live for long, being held alive only by the truck pinning her into place. The flashback is not completed however.
Then, Merrill sees startling video footage on the news of an alien that was spotted during a boy's birthday party in Passo Fundo, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil. Graham then takes a short visit to Ray Reddy's house, in which Ray is found staring blankly out his car window, bleeding. Ray apologizes for the accident that occurred, and then tells Graham that "they don't like water", and that a lot of people have gone to the lake. Ray leaves Graham standing in the driveway, after telling him he trapped "one" in his pantry. Graham investigates, and when he peeks under the pantry door, a clawed hand tries to grab him. He hurriedly cuts off the fingers with a knife, then leaves.
Graham meets with his family and proposes two alternatives: going to the lake, in hope that the aliens do not like water, or staying home. After a family vote, where Graham says that his vote counts for two, the family decides to stay home and they board up all the doors and windows. While Graham and Merrill do this, Morgan and Bo watch the news and find out that the mysterious airborne lights are now visible over approximately 274 cities worldwide, appearing within a mile of crop signs, and the number of appearances is growing rapidly.
Before they finish boarding up the house they decide to have their last full family meal, choosing their favorite foods to make. In an emotional scene Graham holds his children and brother while they all cry, realizing how much the death of their mother/wife has affected them, and how scared they are. Suddenly the baby monitor begins once more making the mysterious noises of the aliens talking. Graham checks the television and it's off air.
They then board up the last doors and windows and go to the living room, waiting for the aliens. The dog, who was accidentally left outside, begins to bark alarmingly, but is suddenly silenced with a yelp. Soon after, three aliens climb up onto the roof and get in through the attic. When Merrill realizes that they forgot to board up the attic access door in the ceiling, the family decides to hide in the basement and use a mattock to prop the basement door closed. Graham and Merrill manage to ward off the alien attack. One alien finds a way in through a coal shaft, and grabs Morgan's neck, attempting to strangle him, but is repelled, resulting in Morgan having an asthma attack.
The next morning, they hear on the radio that a method of fighting them has been developed and the aliens are retreating, even leaving behind their wounded. Graham decides to venture out as Morgan has had a serious asthma attack during the night and needs medicine. Seeing that there is no signal coming in from their walkie-talkie, Graham and the family head upstairs. They are surprised by the alien that Graham previously encountered in Ray Reddy's house (its fingers are missing), and the alien grabs Morgan.
In a vision format, the flashback is then completed, with Graham comforting his wife as she dies. She is still coherent, even after being hit by the car, and manages to tell Graham to look after the children, and that she loves them. She also tells Graham to tell Merill to "swing away", due to his love of baseball.
During the final confrontation with the alien, several seemingly unrelated things come together to help the family. Graham, seeing Merill's baseball bat trophy on the wall, remembers what his wife said, and tells Merill to swing away. Merrill then grabs his baseball bat and attacks the alien. Graham rescues Morgan from the alien but in the process Morgan (who is having an asthma attack) is sprayed with a gaseous poison by the alien. During the fight with the alien Merrill discovers that the glasses of water (which Bo had left all over the house) act like a powerful acid when they touch the alien, so he begins to use his bat to smash the glasses of water onto the invader. He finally manages to kill the monster when he strikes it with a powerful blow, causing the alien to crash into a nearby table and knock a full glass of water onto the creature's face.
When Graham takes Morgan outside to try to resuscitate him, Merrill and Bo follow. Merrill starts to flip out and Bo starts to cry when they see the shape Morgan is in. But then, Graham realizes that his son didn't breathe in the toxin because he was having an asthma attack when he was sprayed. Then, Morgan wakes up and asks "Did someone save me?" Graham breaks down and says "Yeah, baby. I think someone did." Graham's faith is restored.
In the final scene, it shows winter weather outside as Graham is wearing a clerical suit, preparing for church.
[edit] Cast
- Mel Gibson as Reverend Graham Hess
- Joaquin Phoenix as Merrill Hess
- Rory Culkin as Morgan Hess
- Abigail Breslin as Bo Hess
- Cherry Jones as Bucks County Police Officer Caroline Paski
- M. Night Shyamalan as Ray Reddy
- Patricia Kalember as Colleen Hess
- Ted Sutton as Sergeant First Class Cunningham
[edit] Deleted scenes
On the DVD, there are some deleted scenes:
- Flashbacks 1 and 2: Two scenes with Graham's wife, Colleen. In the first, she sits with a toddler Morgan and baby Bo in a rocking chair while Graham watches. In the second, she dances with him. She hums the same tune in both scenes.
- The dead bird: With no sound, this scene shows Graham going back home from Ray's, and after a short time, a dead bird near the road (after supposedly hitting an invisible forcefield) is shown.
- The attic door and the third story: The longest one, it starts with Merrill finding out about the not-boarded attic door. Despite Graham's efforts to call him back, Merrill goes up the stairs and manages to hold the door by climbing up a chair and putting his hands at the door. Trying to help, Graham looks for a way to hold the door. He gets a tall shelving unit, and places it under the door. Knowing this is only a temporary solution, Graham gets his family and takes them to a small room and puts some chairs at the door to hold the aliens out of the room. There, he tells the "third story", about Merrill, in which he broke his arm. Then everyone goes down to the basement, the only safe room available.
[edit] Blu-ray release
For the first time, the film was released in high definition on the Blu-ray format, on June 4, 2008.
[edit] Reception
Signs garnered mostly positive reviews from movie critics.[1], most notable of which is Roger Ebert's review:
M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs" is the work of a born filmmaker, able to summon apprehension out of thin air. When it is over, we think not how little has been decided, but how much has been experienced ... At the end of the film, I had to smile, recognizing how Shyamalan has essentially ditched a payoff. He knows, as we all sense, that payoffs have grown boring. [2]
Like all of Shyamalan's work, Signs is not without its detractors, with Variety's Todd McCarthy writing "After the overwrought Unbreakable and now the meager Signs, it's fair to speculate whether Shyamalan's persistence in replicating the otherworldly formula of The Sixth Sense might not be a futile and self-defeating exercise." [3]
It grossed nearly $228 million domestically and $408 million worldwide[4] at the box office, ranking only behind The Sixth Sense in Shyamalan's box office success and grossing more than The Village and Unbreakable combined.
In 2004, it was listed as #77 on Bravo's 100 Scariest Movie Moments for the Brazilian birthday party scene.
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] External links
- Signs at the Internet Movie Database
- Signs - M. Night Shyamalan Online
- M. Night Fans - Signs
- Signs at Rotten Tomatoes
- Movieweb: Production Notes
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