Signs

The release of Signs was preceded by a truly awful trailer which might have put anyone off, and which ought at least to have made them wonder what the hell anybody was doing releasing a crop circle movie in the 21st century. We need scarcely fear the wrath of any alien species so stuck in the Eighties; one match and we could incinerate them in a cloud of their own hairspray.

It is unfortunate that the only glimpses we get of the aliens themselves reveal them to be men in rubber suits more obvious than any Dr Who creation. M Night Shyamalan's films, however, always harbour secrets, and Signs' secret is that it isn't really a crop circle movie at all - it's a zombie movie.

Aside from not actually featuring reanimated human corpses, it fits every genre cliche. It has the zombie movie's usual flaws - feeble attempts at humour, trite plotting (especially the part involving a little boy dependent on medication), a clunky script (created, it would seem, by highly intelligent people with no writing experience whatsoever), and the habit of resorting to cheap parlour tricks - loud bangs and sudden movements - in an attempt to keep audience attention. Beyond that, however, it's really quite an interesting piece. What Shyamalan has done is to take a standard zombie-siege plot and then question how it would affect real human beings, as opposed to shrieking teenagers and macho men.

Mel Gibson is an adequate lead, let down occasionally by the script. Joaquim Phoenix gives sterling support, illustrating still further that he is a real actor capable of considerable shifts between roles, and a man not afraid to express imperfection. Rory Culkin's wee boy is best of all - Shyamalan and Gibson both have a history of eliciting good performances from children, and it really shows here, so he comes across as a fully fledged character and not merely a dependent cypher for the plot. As for Abigail Breslin, who plays his sister, she occasionally sounds like she's reciting, but does very well for her age, and her silent acting is perfectly believable. Neither grates the way children in such films usually do, which is vital, because the family's relationship is central to what makes Signs work.

The truly remarkable thing about this otherwise fairly run of the mill scary movie is Shyamalan's direction. This is most striking in the quieter, more ordinary scenes than during the action sequences. He does some really innovative stuff with framing, allowing characters to move in and out of focus, expressing their importance to the unit, at different times, through their positions on the screen. Signs is yet another indication that we can expect great things from him in the future.