The Signal follows a group of three friends Nic (Brenton Thwaites), Haley (Olivia Cooke), and Jonah (Beau Knapp) as they go out on their road trip across the country to help move Haley for college. While Nic and Haley are dealing with relationship problems, Nic and Jonah pursue a hacker that was able to hack into MIT's servers. Impressed by his work, Nic and Jonah track down the hacker's IP address to find out where he lives. Taking a detour on the trip, they arrive at the hacker's location to find the place empty or so they think. The group soon find themselves abducted and waking up in a ominous location, trapped by a group with unknown origins or motives. Nic faces daily evaluations from Damon (Lawrence Fishburne) but must find a way out of the facility and save his friends along the way while figuring out just what exactly happened to them.
My first initial response walking out of the theater from this viewing was: ok? This was by no means a bad film, a bad film for me is one that insults its audience, as long as I can see that a movie is trying to telling a story with a creative eye then it has my respect. So when it comes to The Signal I feel like I have seen a truly average film. It has its high moments and it has its low moments but overall the movie lands right in the middle of the road for me. It starts off with a weird horror movie vibe, in fact my friend Steven and I commented thinking that we were in for a horror movie. That somewhat had my attention especially one shot of Haley getting sucked up into the air out of no where. The film seemed to have some potential. Its here that the film transitions to the testing/holding facility that Nic wakes up in. We follow him as we discover what has happened to his friends and himself while also trying to understand just what is going on in this mysterious facility.
Here we meet Lawrence Fishburne's Damon, a very calm and stern scientist who evaluates Nic on a regular basis asking him if he remembers being conducted or anything that happens to him. No one gives Nic the answers he wants and they seem to want to keep him away from his friends. As time passes Nic learns that there is more to the facility that meets the eye and more to himself than he once believed. To go more into the plot would be entering spoiler territory so go see the movies yourself to find out what happens to the gang. While the facility setting in the second act of the film starts out promising with its eerie vibe and great setting, the effect slowly dies down and its here where a few of the films problems start to arise. There are a lot of questions that go unanswered like why a cow and opera music is needed for "agitation" and why exactly are they being held in this facility? You never really learn the full answers to a lot of these questions and this works out against the film. While some films like Inception or Kill List work better where questions are not answered, here I feel as if answers would improve the film.
The second act also show signs of bad script and dialogue that really took me out of the film. While the film tries to have a serious tone and atmosphere, some of the dialogue feels long, too over the top, and sometimes too silly. When the movie moves into the last act, the action picks up a little bit and some of the twists they add to the plot are really cool. SPOILER ALERT: I for one found the robotic hands and legs to look pretty cool and their abilities fun to watch. I enjoy watching the guys use their new abilities but unfortunately wish they had given Haley some powers to use. I was hoping to see telepathy or telekinesis or something, giving the one main girl character in the film no powers felt disappointing.
The two main problems I did have with the film break down to slow motion and plot twist. Slow motion in films are a great addition that can bring great attention to detail in a scene and enhance the action or beauty of a shot. Unfortunately the more slow motion you use in the film, the effect starts to wear down on the audience and it loses its impact. This is how I felt during this film and especially because some action scenes that were only shown in slow motion I actually wanted to see in normal time. As I said the other problem I had was with plot twists, this film felt like it was trying so hard to be smart and cool that it threw in way too many "plot twists" that weren't even exciting or surprising to begin with. By the time you get to the end of the film you don't disappointed or happy, you feel like "that was a movie".
So in the end, this film had a lot of good things. I enjoy the first act, the beginning of the second act, and a lot of the visuals were fun to watch and enjoy. Overall this is a very average film that isn't the worst way to spend two hours but you can certainly find better films to enjoy. Watch it for some cool effects and enjoyable moments but other than that don't set your expectations too high.
2/4
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