Review of signs (2014) by Adam K — 12 Feb 2014

Signs is not the sort of movie I'd expect to like. If Greg and Alex hadn't spoken so highly of it, I'd surely never have seen it again (I have a vague but concrete memory of seeing it, I think in theater). I mean, its moral is explicitly Christian, the protagonist confusing the invisible but overbearing guiding hand of the writers with that of the God of Abraham. The preponderance of improbable payoffs to inconsequential setup early in the film draws far too much attention to the artifice of the story for my tastes. And, in the process of achieving its central "crisis-of-faith" theme, the movie stepped on my toes by implying that atheists are just bitter, spiteful people with a grudge against a God they would quickly turn to when times got tough.

But none of that really matters, since Signs is just a really well-made movie. While Stalker's crisis-of-faith character arc was less heavy-handed, it kind of ruined the movie for me because it was insufficiently supported by humanization of the characters. In other words, they felt like philosophical mouthpieces. They didn't even have names! Signs is so great largely because Gibson and his family are given plenty of quality time to breathe and interact during the build-up of tension. These scenes are efficiently crafted for developing emotional investment, the actors have great chemistry, and each inhabits their character with a natural depth. So when Mel cussed out God, and when Joaquin cussed out Mel for cussing out God, I cared.

I appreciated the light touch on the horror elements-I don't have a whole lot of patience or respect for the jump scare gambit, though it definitely does more to get my adrenaline running than anything else. There are a few really good ones here, and they punctuate and articulate character arcs and plot beats. The story is given top priority.

PS - I need to clarify, apparently what it means for Signs to have a Christian moral. I'm going to spoil basically the whole ending, so stop reading if you haven't seen it yet.

Mel Gibson's wife dies before the film, an event we see in flashbacks. This causes him to abandon his life as a priest and, ostensibly, his religion. At the peak of the action against the aliens, he reveals he never really stopped believing, instead spewing vitriol at the creator who killed his wife and threatened his son.

But at the end of the film, it's clear that God killed his wife to cause Mel's brother to move back in with them, and she could burn a message into his brain reminding him that his brother is a baseball player. God also gave his daughter nightmare visions and OCD in order to scatter half-empty water glasses around the house. Finally, God gave his son asthma in order to close his lungs from poison gas at the end of the film.

Thus, these annoying and tragic circumstances were all part of God's plan to help his family survive the alien invasion (and Christians are always more than ready to overlook the larger existence of evil, in this case the fact that God caused the alien invasion in the first place). Mel internalizes this lesson with the depth only seeing his son come back from the brink of death could achieve.

So it's very clearly a message for Mel's character, and to a lesser extent for his family (while they all hated his bitter doubts throughout the film, their faith is surely much strengthened as well). But in our culture at least, stories rarely have morals that aren't meant for the audience as well, to some extent. If you were a Christian going through some hard times, seeing Signs might very well remind you that you "know" God has a plan, that your tribulations now have a payoff someday, possibly something so important you should be glad to suffer whatever you're facing. At least, Signs surely would do this better than the facebook memes and lame church sermons and platitudes that normally express this lesson.

Signs is a great movie because the moral theme serves the character arc, not vice versa. If you are an atheist, agnostic, or pagan, you can enjoy Signs as a story without giving a second thought to whether God has a plan for YOU. That doesn't mean that there isn't a moral there, and one that would be received by at least a decent proportion of the audience.