The Signal

'THE SIGNAL': Three and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Indie sci-fi thriller about three MIT students, on a road trip, who decide to chase down an infamous hacker (that almost got them expelled from school) and find something much more nightmarish. The film was directed by William Eubank; who also wrote and directed another ambitious indie sci-fi flick, in 2011, called 'LOVE' (which was produced by the popular alternative rock band 'Angels & Airwaves'). Eubank also wrote this film; with David Frigerio and Carlyle Eubank. It stars Brenton Thwaites, Laurence Fishburne, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp and Lin Shaye. I found it to be visually spectacular, and interesting enough, to make it a pretty entertaining thrill ride; despite a somewhat unsatisfying conclusion.

The film tells the story of Nic (Thwaites), Haley (Cooke) and Jonah (Knapp); three MIT students on a road trip to California. Nic and Jonah are dropping Haley off there and this has caused some troubles in Nic and Haley's relationship. Nic has muscular dystrophy issues, in his legs, that he also feels are causing Haley to not reach her full potential. While on the trip Nic and Jonah discover a hacker is in the area, named NOMAD, that almost got them expelled from school (for breaking into college servers). They decide to track him down and follow his signal to an old abandoned house in Nevada. Once there something else finds them and it might be some kind of weird government conspiracy, or something much worse.

The movie is full of big ideas, that aren't fully explained at all; most of the movie is left up to viewer interpretation. I respect films like that but this one just isn't quite satisfying enough. It's full of a lot of routine stylistic clichés but they are pretty cool to look at. For a $4 million budgeted movie it sure does looks amazing; I'm sure William Eubank has a big future ahead of him. The acting is decent enough and the story is intriguing. It's nowhere near the quality of a great sci-fi flick but it is a lot of fun; if you're a fan of the genre.

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Slow paced sci-fi. Interesting but if feels like it's only scratching the surface of a few good ideas they could have totally explored a bit more in depth.

Here is another low budget movie that seems ultimately to have been made to ornament one or two fairly lavish setpieces. see for example skinwalker ranch and the banshee chapter which without one or two meretricious moments would not amount to much at all. and of course it is always hard to criticise low budget pictures which are also genre pictures. so in fairness we have a very skillfully shot film, nicely edited ( owing i felt a large debt to 'Primer' stylistically). and there is laurence fishburne who is good but he is only now and forever more morphius in the matrix for all eternity, more or less. unfortunately, the script is a mere cypher, merely to take you from the promising beginning, through the lacklustre and plot less main hour or so until you arrive at the climax where the largest part of the budget is spent. goodnight and thankyou. but think about this for one moment after and you will find a film which collapses under scrutiny. which is not the worst thing, after all some of the most entertaining movies i have see are ridiculous when analysed.. but apart from the million dollar effects shot this is a film that struggles to tell any kind of cogent narrative at all. it is similar in tone to chronicle, a superior film in it's depiction of humans becoming 'more than human'.. and it has very strong echoes to donnie darko. so kudos for the effort. next time try and develop character and plot a little more and you will come up with something quite good i am sure. as it is a sunny day i gives it 6 : )

The 'movie-snob' reviews almost kept me from watching this movie -- I'm glad I didn't listen to them. This was one of the most suspenseful movies I have seen in a long time. At one point I paused the movie to check outside because I thought I heard something -- the movie had me spooked and it takes a lot to get that kind of reaction out of me. There was an eerie feel that stayed with me through the entire movie and it had me guessing the entire time.

The movie could have been better -- there is an attempt to show some spiritual triumph for the main character and a love story that doesn't work, but the suspense and sci-fi elements alone make the movie a solid B and worth seeing.

Three MIT students are driving cross country to California. Nic (Brenton Thwaites) with his disability seems to be pushing his girlfriend Haley (Olivia Cooke) away. A hacker has been harassing Nic and Jonah (Beau Knapp). They track him to a desert house. Something happens and Nic wakes up in a facility treated by Damon (Laurence Fishburne) in an isolation suit. Haley is unconscious and Jonah is missing. Then he discovers his defective legs have been replaced by some sort of advanced prostheses.

Director William Eubank brings a nice look to a sci-fi premise with some promise. However the writing isn't up to scratch. The story has a couple of problems. Thwaites is not necessarily a big time star in waiting. They need to work on the couple's relationship. Parts of this movie feels overextended. It doesn't quite work.