Signs review

In Signs, writer and director M. Night Shyamalan continues his exploration of the supernatural that began triumphantly with The Sixth Sense and continued less successfully with Unbreakable. Signs adopts the same slow, atmospheric and suspenseful style that is becoming his hallmark, but with familiarity comes comfort and that's not an asset in a thriller. There are still plenty of heart-thumping moments, but they are mostly of the loud bang variety and not earned through anticipation. What's worse is that the biggest build up, leading to the film's climax, is more inclined to illicit laughter than fear, proving that suggestion and imagination are more effective than anything shown.

The film's title refers to various inexplicable phenomena that have led to speculation about the existence of extra-terrestrial life on earth. It links crop circles with UFOs and shows their impact on one man, his family and his faith. Dealing with the unknown allowed Shyamalan the freedom to draw his own conclusions about what might be responsible. The disappointing aspect of Signs, particularly coming from someone who showed such talent for providing a fresh perspective, is that it offers such a clichéd hypothesis.

The man whose life is at the centre of this mysterious convergence is Graham Hess (Mel Gibson). The tragic death of his wife six months previously causes Hess to renounce his faith and his position of priest in the small rural town in Pennsylvania where he lives with his two young children Morgan (Rory Culkin) and Bo (Abigail Breslin). To help him with the farm and kids is Hess's younger, less devout brother, Merrill (Joaquin Phoenix). Both are wakened early one morning to discover elaborate crop circles in their cornfields. The subsequent sighting near the house of a tall, dark figure possessed of superhuman speed and agility causes both men to wonder what strange forces are at work.

Shyamalan has a gift for procuring complex performances from his child actors. Culkin exhibits many of the introspective and self-possessed qualities Haley Joel Osment showed in The Sixth Sense and Abigail Breslin displays an ethereal quality as Bo, whose fastidious obsession with clean water is one of many elements in Signs that yields both humour and unease.

As instances of paranormal phenomena increase worldwide, Morgan is the first in the family to take seriously the threat of extra-terrestrials. It's a feeling the others share as the signs of outside life, that began with the crop circles, creep closer to home.

Before its risible conclusion Signs provides moments of wit and wonder along with the odd jolt, but its exploration of the supernatural probes no deeper than the Weekly World News.