Review of The Signal (2014) by Randy C — 28 Sep 2014

The Signal is an interesting science fiction film that starts off promising and ends in a manner of speechless thoughts about the twist.

Three MIT students, Jonah (Beau Knapp), Nic (Brenton Thwaites), and Haley (Olivia Cooke) are on a road trip across country. Nic and Haley are on a struggling relationship while Nic and Jonah are secretly trying to track down a hacker known as NOMAD. NOMAD has been harassing them and stalking them through their laptops and tracking they're every move. They track NOMAD in a deserted house until all three wake up in a mysterious facility. The facility is lead by Dr. William (Laurence Fishburne), who believes they encountered some sort of extra-terrestrial life that may have affected them.

I cannot go much into detail about the plot without giving away spoilers. The movie starts on a good note with three best friends being put into a bigger test. It does open up some themes about the characters choices, and actions and others. It is what makes the movie so different. William Eubank does set the movie up but it eventually comes crashing half way through the movie once a turning point in the plot is revealed. It was not the plot that was a let down, the direction looked like an independent film want to be of Michael Bay's works. It starts having so many unnecessary slow motions that became annoying and redundant. How many times do we have to see the characters turning and watching them get debris thrown at them in slow mo? Apparently enough, Eubank was not consistent to the films tone, even though it had a very good premise to the direction it was heading. It had a mysterious tone that sets it way apart if you compared it to other science fiction extra-terrestrials movies like Under the Skin or District 9. The end twist is one of those endings that you badly want to talk about to others but resist trying too without ruining it. But it was effective in a mind blowing way.

The Signal had so much going for it from a premise that gets good as plot is unraveled, but it loses its momentum when the direction could not keep up with its overused slo mo.