"The opposite of 'Independence Day,' basically." - M. Night Shyamalan on "Signs"

"Signs, signs, everywhere are signs..." - The Five Man Electrical Band

Note: Oh yes my children, lots and lots of spoilers! This review is for those who have seen the film only.

M. Night Shyamalan is a master filmmaker. From the opening shot of "Signs," we are captivated, edgy and creeped out. Shyamalan shows us a bucolic scene of a swingset through a pane of glass, a upstairs window. We already can tell we are in the Midwest, in a farm house. But immediately the view is contorted. Is it something other-worldly? Or is it simply a distortion caused by the pane of glass, an old farmhouse has glass that may be old and may cause wavy images outside, wouldn't it? Shyamalan has hooked us in this first moment. We are in. The line between reality and science fiction is about to be blurred.

Mel Gibson. strong, stoic, a father. A photograph acts as all the exposition we need to know for now. He wears a clerical collar and has his family around him. He awakens. Something is wrong. But Shyamalan is a master storyteller. He tells us what we need to know. Gibson goes to a door where children's artwork hangs on the door. He almost enters. No, he is being obsessive and over-protective. He does not enter. He brushes his teeth. Then he hears a child scream.

Joaquin Phoenix. Young, quiet, concerned. He flies out of bed. Something is amiss. He runs and meets Gibson. "Where are the children?" they ask (do they ask it aloud?). They run through a cornfield. Here we will meet the two creepiest children since "Village of the Damned," since Wednesday and Pugsly Adams.

First we see Abigal Breslin, Gibson's young daughter. "Are you in my dream?" she asks Gibson. "It's not a dream," he replies but from this moment on, we are not sure what is real and what is not. Breslin will continue this distortion of reality throughout the film. She is the most exceptional young actress since Drew Barrymore in "E.T." She is absorbent of all attention. She exudes trepidation. She is not of this world.

Rory Culkin. Is there nothing the young Culkin boys cannot do? Not charming like Macaulay, not teenage and hip like Kieran. He is as creepy and as unnerving as Breslin. He takes Gibson's face in his hand and turns it towards thew camera slowly, deliberately. "I think God did it," he says. He is the strangest child.

Shyamalan is a master filmmaker. If ever there was a film that should be studied by film students as an example of perfection in pacing, it is "Signs." Shyamalan does not miss a beat, not once. He isn't Charlie Watts or Neil Peart or even Alex Van Halen. He's more like a studio drummer (a populist), or a drum machine on a new age song. His pace is slow, as deliberate as Culkin's manipulation of Gibson's neck. You could play a metronome to this film and it would not miss a beat. It is magnificent.

Shyamalan is a master filmmaker. Look at how he shoots from POV. He makes POV an artform. He is truly this generation's Hitchcock and Spielberg and you-name-it. His POV shots are both obvious and cunning, both mainstream and incredibly artful. Look at how he shoots Phoenix in the recruiting office. The film is claustrophobic and cramped. The ceiling threatens to cave in on the characters at any moment. The sky is going to fall. There is no doubt. All hell is about to break loose. The images never lie.

Shyamalan is a master filmmaker. He creates a tightknit unit of 2 adults and 2 children. He only inserts only two other characters, really. And to keep the project singular and focused, he plays one of these characters himself. This is not ego nor is it some sort of budget restraint. Shyamalan sets the tone for his actors. He creates the pace and the tone and the crystalline vision of the film in his acting. He is the film, the actor and the director, the scientist, the glassmaker, the mirror and the mirror's image.

Shyamalan is a master filmmaker. In addition to hiring the perfect cast and shepherding them perfectly through the film, he also gets Tak Fujimoto to DP the film. The sky is amazing. The look of the film is perfection. This is the most dazzling film you will look at this year. It's images will haunt you. And Shyamalan doesn't stop there. Instead of Danny Elfman, he chooses James Newton-Howard to create a score that is as much homage to Bernard Hermann as it is to Elfman.

"Signs" is perhaps the best mainstream film since "The Sixth Sense."

And then, in the final ten minutes it all comes together... and in doing so... falls completely apart.

What a let down. What a drag. What a disappointment.

The film that has been the most captivating, the most engrossing, the most amazing, the most engaging simply ends exactly like you think it will.

Am I spoiled? Has Shyamalan created a motif in his films which creates the illusion of expectation, the foreplay of a stunning and totally unexpected surprise ending? We expect a real kick here... a real twist... a really, really smart maneuver that we simply could not possibly have seen coming. I want to be dazzled, to be shocked, to be enlightened, to be heartbroken... shattered, to be made to orgasm... And Shyamalan simply pulls up the covers and kisses me goodnight. They all lived happily ever after.

I almost cannot forgive him. In his ending, his edifice becomes standard, his exposition leads exactly where it has led in a thousand other films, his themes are simply finalized rather than refocused. We feel suckered, shell- shocked by the typicality and the mediocrity of it all. We thought we were seeing something special and new. Instead, we got what everyone else always gives us. It is foreplay without orgasm. Worse, it's like fantasizing about a model while were fucking someone and opening our eyes to see it's simply our tired old lover right when we come.

M. Night Shyamalan is a master filmmaker. The first 90 minutes of "Signs" proves it yet again. The last ten minutes makes you wonder if maybe he won't be creating a TV series in the near future. Or perhaps he'll helm "Charlie's Angels 3."

"Signs" is like expecting to hear the song by The Five Man Electrical Band and, after putting your quarter in the jukebox, hearing it drop, kicking the side, and hearing the mechanism gear up, the needle drops and... You get the song "Signs" by Ace of Base instead.

Note:

Also with Cherry Jones.

Report Card Script: A- Acting: A+ Cinematography\Lighting: A+ Special Effects\Make Up: A Music: A+ Final Grade: A-

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