The Signal, 2014
Directed by William Eubank
Starring Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp, Laurence Fishburne
SYNOPSIS:
On a road trip, Nic and two friends are drawn to an isolated area by a computer genius. When everything suddenly goes dark, Nic regains consciousness – only to find himself in a waking nightmare.
The brilliance of science fiction is there is so much room for creativity and new ideas. Some of the most inventive movies of cinema’s history have come from the science fiction genre and that is what The Signal is built from. It has elements of The Matrix, it has elements of superhero movies and even has elements of lesser known genre attempts like The Island. But for all its good intentions, there is something lacking in The Signal that can’t push it beyond its means.
It’s also a movie where the less you know about it, the better your experience will be as The Signal is a real head scratcher of a movie and it draws you into this question-filled world. Three teenagers who are helping one of the party to move into their new college digs are caught in a web of hacking by someone named NOMAD. When they find his signal source, they follow it and find themselves in a place they never thought possible. From there, the movie just keeps adding layers and layers until it reaches a boiling point.
The Matrix is a movie that will be most likely compared to The Signal by those who see it. Not just in terms of its ideas and execution (or the appearance of Laurence Fishburne), but in how its presented. But unlike The Wachowski’s seminal science fiction modern-day classic, The Signal doesn’t have that “Morpheus explains the plot” scene. There is no exposition in The Signal. Carlyle and William Eubank’s script drip feeds you information as it crawls along at a slow and methodical pace and when you want to know something, they don’t give it to you. Instead you get given the answers when they see fit. It makes for a compelling watch and you might even find yourself leaning forward in your seat waiting to see what is going to come next.
But this kind of story telling does come with a price – and that price is pacing. At 97 minutes, The Signal is far from lengthy but it feels very long. Its slow nature and drip-feed mentality means you spend a lot of the movie waiting for the next plot point which can feel like an age. Furthermore, there comes a point where the movie just comes to a complete halt for a solid 20-25 minutes and it takes a while for it to get going again. In these moments, The Signal can be rather boring which isn’t helped by a lack of character in our three leads.
The Signal spends time in the beginning setting these characters and their relationships up, but these plot threads never seem to come to pass as the movie moves into its second act. The relationship between Nic and Haley is fairly obvious, but its never interesting as opposed to the brotherly love type relationship between Nic and Jonah which is far more developed. But this is because the script allows for their bonding to take place, unlike any form of development for Olivia Cooke’s Haley. For as good as she is as an actress, Haley as a character is perhaps the most useless female lead committed to the silver screen. She never takes part in any of the story progression, she never takes part in any conversations and she spends the majority of the movie sleeping in the background while “the men” sort things out. She’s just along for the ride and she’s boring because of it.
There is a good movie in The Signal somewhere and William Eubank gets almost all of the puzzle pieces in the right place, but the film lacks any form of character and its drip feeding mentality doesn’t give the payoff it deserves as it moves into its final moments. Good performances and an interesting script aside, The Signal is a rather mediocre affair, which is such a shame as it had so much promise. The Eubanks show some potential as science fiction filmmakers and while this is not the best first step forward they could have taken, at least it’s not a step back.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Luke Owen is the Deputy Editor of Flickering Myth and the host of the Flickering Myth Podcast. You can follow him on Twitter @LukeWritesStuff.
Originally published August 27, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
