The last Sign - Das letzte Zeichen

OK, I am a red-blooded female. Sometimes I rent a flick simply because a good-looking actor is in it. When I saw the DVD box for this one I recognized Samuel Le Bihan from "Brotherhood of the Wolf". Since I thought he was "all that and a bag of chips" in that one, I decided to check him out in this one. Also, I like Andie MacDowell well enough and I was curious to see what their fellow cast mate Margot Kidder (Lois Lane in the Christopher Reeve "Superman" flicks) looks like these days.

Undeniably there are much better flicks out there, but this one wasn't all bad. There are a few kinda creepy/mysterious scenes and some interesting camera shots and angles. And, yes, Samuel Le Bihan provided some enjoyable eye candy to offset the creepy-as-usual Tim Roth. By the way, has Roth ever played a sympathetic character? If you like the current hit TV series "Medium" starring Patricia Arquette, you will most likely enjoy this movie. It sort of reminded me of some story lines on that show.

In general, I believe film audiences are jaded in the 21st Century. We are desensitized by the plethora of special effects and blast-'em-up extravaganzas with high body counts. It seems that fewer people want to invest the time in a lower-key film, such as this one, in which seemingly random details come together in at least a somewhat cohesive whole at the end. That's not to say the film wrapped up all loose ends, because it didn't. That is one reason I didn't give it more stars. Another reason is the uneven acting. In other words, some of the cast provided more convincing portrayals than others. And, Margot Kidder is as goofy as ever. I hadn't seen her in anything in a number of years.

For my time and money, I would take this film any day over "The Blair Witch Project", which, to me, is the worst movie ever.

This is truly one of the worst movies I have ever seen, and I've sat through some real stinkers. "The Last Sign" features a deadly combination of wooden acting from Andie MacDowell, overacting on the son's part that soap operas would balk on, and a script that sounds as though it was written by a three-year-old. Consider this line uttered by Mark (Samuel Lebihan) at a baseball game. "Frank's team is winning. Now all the pressure is on Frank." This was followed by shouts to Frank of "Come on! You can do it!" It might look nice on paper, but it sounded so wooden and unrealistic coming out of their mouths that as soon as the movie was over, I wanted to throw the DVD across the room. Let's not forget the fact that too many unbelievable events happened for no reason, and the ending completely forgot to explain them all. Avoid this movie like the plague.

I thought at first that this movie happens in France, because of this green country, old mansion and french actor. But, it is located in Canada that gives me another reason to make a trip there.

The story is not original because a love story beyond grave has already been told in "Ghost" or "Always". But, here, the entire movie relies on the performance of Andie and she's excellent as always. It's not a common thing to have an actress of her age being the focus of an entire movie thus her fans (like me) should be happy.

In addition, it's has been a great pleasure to see again the wonderful "Lois" (Margot Kidder) past her middle life too. She is always so dynamic, mindful and her voice will be forever unique.

However, the script would have been better written because Andie is unfortunately very passive: She witnesses very strange things but never show reaction except fear and anguish and keeps all for herself. This isn't very believable.

At last, the movie is called the "Last Sign" and if I have seen signs, I wonder which is the last because none struck me very much.

I took this movie out of the library free, so at least I didn't waste any money. The acting of all characters was unbelievable. It made me feel it was the directors' first directing job. There are a lot of loose ends that are not explained but by reading the reviews on this web site I now understand things better. Thank you IMDb. I know I did not fall asleep during the movie but that was how I felt since it seemed I missed something. It is not the worst movie I have seen but I definitely could have used the time in a more rewarding way. For some reason I missed picking up on the fact that the husband was an abusive alcoholic. Also whenever the two main characters were together I felt uncomfortable because it was embarrassing to watch such bad acting.

Kathy is widow that still remembers his husband, and alcoholic and violent man that died in accident car the same day they broke up. She fells guilty and is not able to rebuild her life. The apparition of a new neighbor, Mark, and the strange things that begin to happen in her life will change this. The story is very typical and has anything new, in most moments, it is very stupid, as things are happening without any logic. Most characters are empty, just a name and a body, with no flavour in them. The film develops with bad attempts of being frightening and the ending is, well, it is easy to do it better. It is a film for Sunday afternoon, when nobody is watching TV. But well, it is not very boring.