"It's a hoax."
Code Orange Alert #39105: Signs
In the magazines, on the TV screen, everybody's running around, talking to that Stuart Little like he's a real person. We've got Andy Jones interviewing him overseas, the film's clothing designer, in the pages of Entertainment Weekly, telling us how the mouse loved wearing his little red hoody while on-set. It's a Damn cartoon, people. You're not fooling me. I don't give two sh*ts and a f*ck about the inner thoughts of some computer generated poltroon. Leave me alone!
And you too, you stupid Desani Girls, staring at me from the back of the bus, eyeing my sorry ass as if to say "This water bottle's about to see more action than you ever will." At least Steven Soderbergh's getting it right. (No, I'm not talking about Full Frontal. He goes around, squawking about how he didn't spend any money on this piece of doot, then he expects us to pay full ticket price for it? And these arthouse theaters charge twice as much as a regular multiplex? Yeah, right.) With Steven's proposed Che Cuevara biography about to go into production, all those Hipster sh*t-f*cks in their little black boxshoes will finally know who that guy is on their T-shirt.
Oh, yeah. Signs. This is possibly the strangest movie I've ever seen. It's not at all what I thought it would be. I didn't know whether to hide under my seat or cry. It's not your typical sci-fi creature feature. It offsets that notion by throwing in more humanity and passion than any Merchant/Ivory flick could. Signs is about faith, God, and accepting those atrocities which plaque or daily existence; like M. Night Shyamalan casting himself in, not a lead role, but, one that is essential to the plot in every way.
Without his character, we wouldn't have the death of Mel Gibson's onscreen wife. We wouldn't have our protagonist's motivation, or loss of it. So, why, I ask, did M. Night throw himself up on that screen? He plays into one of the most unintentionally funny scenes I've witnessed in a long time. Mel takes his brood to the local pizza parlor, and while eating they see M. getting into his Jeep. At this point, we don't know who he's suppose to be, but we know who he 'is'. He's M. Night. And the family stares at him in awe, as if to say, "There's the bastard who put us in this horrible situation. He created this world, we should lynch him."
Then the auspicious moppet disguised as Mel's daughter asks, "Who is that man, daddy?" You can literally hear the entire audience gasp, "Why, it's the Director, dear. Didn't you meet him over by the honey wagon?" I'm guessing M. Night has yet to see Quentin Tarantino's earlier work. Unless you're Danny DeVito, don't go throwing yourself into the mix. Concentrate on the task at hand. Hell, I don't even like seeing Danny DeVito in one of his own projects. It's incredibly distracting. Sure, it was cute when M. Night showed up in The Sixth Sense. I didn't even mind his turn in Unbreakable. But this goes beyond idiotic. It's hard to watch him during his big scene. It's suppose to be this teary-eyed moment of truth for both himself and Mel Gibson's Graham Hess, but it's obtuse. The man can act, but the moment's not locked in his soul. He should have known better and cast someone else. It would have meant that much more to the film's throughline.
In recent days, "they've" called M. Night the next Steven Spielberg. Well, he's not. He's M. Night. And, at the moment, his movies are ten times more entertaining. Yet, he's missed one point: Spielberg has never cast himself in a major role. Sure, he had a cameo in E.T., but he smartly left it on the cutting room floor. I mean, can you imagine Steven Spielberg steering one of the ships in Amistad? Or marching into one of those ovens in Shindler's List? F*ck, why didn't M. Night just cast Rosie O'Donnell in Signs. Okay, okay...He's not half that bad. And I'm not sure he didn't, we never do get a clear look at that alien's face. It could be Rosie...
With the above minor annoyance out of the way, I must say, I truly loved Signs. It's not what the trailers have led us to believe. And it doesn't really have a twist ending. At once, it plays like a prequel to Independence Day, but it's core concept is more related to M. Night's earlier film, Wide Awake. Aliens and Invasion play like a Mac Guffen to Mel Gibson's search for constancy in religious belief. They're needed for scares, but what it all comes down to is forgiveness and cruel destiny. It's a concept that will be lost on more than half of Signs' audience members. M. Night's movies have always had a very lax, spiritual air about them, and this one's no different.
After it was over, I heard a lot of vocal complaints that Signs failed to deliver. The ending just isn't what all of those other sci-fi adventure films have led us to expect. If you've seen the Alien-Monster in the trailer, you've seen it. Period. These spooky guys don't get a lot of screen time, and when we finally do get to see one, it seems as though we are looking at him through a screen door with a sheet over our head. This, in part, is pure tribute to Spielberg's earliest work, like Duel, Jaws and Close Encounters. Shyamalan is playing the rule, "The less you see, the scarier it'll be."
His assumptions are correct. The suspense is held at such a heightened level, when we do finally (kinda) see the beast, it's not as frightening. He's smart in knowing that, no matter what the creature looks like, when it finally is revealed, it's not going to be horrifying by any means. Not getting to see the alien lends this mystique that would otherwise be absent. Signs would be a benign experience, and with it being as slow as it is in parts, the whole package would be dead in the water. M. Night treats his hostile interlopers with the type of anonymity usually reserved for Big Foot on In Search Of. The thing looks like any number of blurred pictures seen in an Unsolved Mysteries of the Universe hardcover textbook. It's a brilliant visual style that is going to come under some heat for not meeting industry standards. On the other hand, it has this unique, K-Mart $1 book approach that made the movie for me. I mean, that alien could very well be a man in a suit. If anything, Signs pays the most homage to Roger Patterson's famous Sasquatch footage.
When the aliens do attack, Mel Gibson takes some quiet moments to tell his children about the day they were born. It's strangely sublime and touching, while being unnerving to boot. Usually, the hero is busy trying to fend off whatever imposing force is threatening his family. Here, Gibson seems to be making up for lost time. It's as if he knows he's going to die, and he wants to make sure he gets everything out of the way. There's a lot of humor in Signs, but it turns on a dime and often grows ugly. One minute, the narrative is evoking a chuckle, then it takes that earned laugh and turns it into a miserable experience. Signs also relies on flashbacks at seemingly inappropriate moments. There is no "Bruce Willis is dead" declaration during the third act, yet Shyamalan trails backwards, as if it's his curse. He doesn't have to do this in every film. We don't need it here.
This is the second movie in which M. Night seems overly preoccupied with water. It's a continuing motif that must play largely into Shyamalan's own past; along with Spirituality, it's becoming one of his main staples. The little girl has a thing for refusing to drink full cups of water and the Aliens are allergic to it. In Unbreakable, water was Bruce Willis' Kryptonite. That poor director must have come close to drowning when he was a kid; or something. When studying Autuer Theory in direct relation to M. Night Shyamalan, H2O will surely be a clear topic of choice in discussion.
Bottom-line; don't go to Signs seeking the Second Coming of The Sixth Sense. Sure, it shares similar themes, but it's not that type of movie. It's better, but it's so far removed from what I was expecting, I was a bit taken back. It's hard to say where it will land, but it's the type of lasting entertainment that will only grow better with age. It's about damn time somebody made a movie about crop circles. I'm not sure it could have been done better. Now, if M. Night could just keep his mug out of the camera's lens.
Here's to hoping his next one's about the Chupacabra. Maybe it'll eat him.
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