The Signal (2014) User Reviews

An impressive film school exercise but not quite a movie

[robert-blau · 6/10 · 16 June 2014]

"Visually arresting, methodically paced, and almost perfectly executed" says another review here. I agree and would add well-acted, produced, and directed. But it still doesn't quite make it as a movie, something with a real story that is effectively delivered and is more than the sum of its strung-together parts. Each scene is fine, but they just seem like a string of episodes rather than a coherent story. One has trouble getting the point and is left somewhat confused and unsatisfied, with the final twist more baffling than impactive. I would say that the words "inchoate" and even "incoherent" can't help but come to mind regarding the film.

Before you write me off as someone who only likes nice linear films where EVERYTHING is made perfectly clear and who can't handle anything unusual, abstract, metaphoric, or different in any way, compare "Signal" to "Dark City", the recent "Under the Skin", and even "THX 1138" (which BTW arguably has a lot of similarities to this one).

Meanwhile, for examples of films that have similar problems as "Signal", see "Citadel" (2012), "Critical Nexus" (2013), and even "Shuttle" (2008) or "Blair Witch Project". I would argue, tho', that most of these, whatever their flaws, are probably more effective at delivering a real story than "Signal". MEANWHILE, to see what a low-budget independent sci-fi movie CAN be, see "Moon" (2009).

Finally, I was just reading a review of "Signal" in which the reviewer mentions another director who started out with a middling low-budget sci-fi film and has gone on to bigger and better accomplishments; he sees similar potential in the director of "Signal". I fully agree. Again, I think "Signal" was impressive and well worth seeing, but doesn't quite make it to the level of a real and effective movie.

For a $4 million budgeted movie it sure does looks amazing!

[Hellmant · 7/10 · 26 September 2014]

'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.

Watch our movie review show 'MOVIE TALK' at: https://youtu.be/NdWU81GeyN4

Simply not delivering

[Hopstimop · 5/10 · 24 July 2014]

Actually I think, it could have been something good, but it was not.

It tried to be something special, but it failed.

It has absolutely no message, no emotions no nothing, although the director tried to create the illusion of them.

Overused slow motion, unrelated scenes cut randomly together, theatrical music totally misplaced and overused, unfinished characters and their background stories, no suspension at all, mixing up styles, like he didn't know if he wants to make a "found-camera" movie, a road trip movie, an alien abduction movie, a romantic movie, a Bonnie and Clyde kind of movie or something else. And I could go on and on.

It just doesn't add up.

It was a boring flick, that kept me watching just because I was curious how the aliens come into the story, but I didn't care for anything else in between and for sure not for the characters and their well-being.

Better than the reviews you read on this site

[craiginhouston · 7/10 · 10 October 2014]

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.

I love that movies like this are being made

[bbickley13-921-58664 · 7/10 · 15 June 2014]

It's a good Sci-fi movie

It looks low budget, but they have some outstanding special effects. It seems that Sci-fi is going back to the character driven stuff that was big in the 1970's. Way more than just some cool effects, the movie centers on the main character, Nick Eastman, an math genus going to MIT who intercepts a hacker's commutation that he and his friend, Marbelle track down while traveling to California to drop off his girlfriend Haley. The situation takes a wild twist when they don't find the Hacker, Nomad, but get caught up in a government quarantine headed up by Dr. Damon played by Laurence Fishburne.

What I like best about the movie is that it has a feel of contemporary times as well. the Science fiction has elements of a superhero movie as they get deeper into Dr. Damon's plot and what an alien presence has to do with it.

The movie does have to stand on the legs of the main character, which could have been a little bit more develop .

Overall, it's Sci-fi worth seeing

Just enjoy it for what it is

[smoke0 · 1 August 2018]

The negative reviews are all so ridiculously nit-picky it's almost as if they were paid just to slam this film. It's a ride, not a thesis, just let it take you along all the twists and turns, don't bother trying to figure it out, and you'll have a good time. Isn't that entertainment?

a film that thinks it is smarter than it is

[trickpixel · 6/10 · 7 June 2014]

The director did a Q/A after the screening and mentioned that he never got into film school, but got into the industry by working for 8 years

in cinematography for panavision, working his way up. I really respect that. Also, this film sounds effing amazing, mostly due to getting Skywalker Sound/Ben Burtt to assist. Amazing! Talk about connections.

**-light spoilers ahead-** With that said, this movie is built around these twists, but those twists are not very smart nor do they challenge you to think -but that isn't what makes this film bad -though I think good sci-fi should do that. This film combines ideas seen and used in past films; certainly it does very little new. In no way shape or form am I punishing this film for not being original either. It has one or two interesting concepts, it is a polished film with some genuine tense scenes. However, I just don't believe it is a very strong film because it is not very smart, and it is filmed with many scenes that are not very purposeful, or meaningful, especially to the story. Example: There are these random scenes where the main character is staring into a flooded forest crossing; seemed very out of place. or There is a scene where the protagonist on a wheelchair is escaping with female on stretcher tied to him, nobody notices him.

This film actually reminded me of Skyline more than anything else. It also kind of rips off the best concepts of Dark City.

I think this director has much potential, but I implore him to challenge the audience more with storytelling, and moreover to stop using visual effects as the pillars of a film, to stop letting the desire for a twist to drive a film. Good storytelling is beyond those things.

Felt like a bigger budget episode of The Outer Limits - In a good way!

[Paynebyname · 7/10 · 24 December 2015]

I have to say that I enjoyed this film.

I remember seeing the trailer and being intrigued but having this curtailed a little when I read some of the negative reviews. However the film made it onto Netflix and I gave it a go. I'm glad I did.

Yes, it might not be big budget but the characters and their plight held my attention and whereas I might not usually succumb to the pretence of the long lingering shots, in this it seemed to just work.

I thought the idea and concept was really good and gave me food for thought, which is all you can ask for from a piece of entertainment.

The effects were cool and although used sparingly were used appropriately and to very good effect. I loved the whole running and powered up attributes that the two guys had and very much liked how they employed these with the silent screaming and slow motion effects.

Indeed it felt like a cracking origin story and I would love to have seen how these characters would have used their powers/attributes in the real world.

The final kicker was impactful and I think the writer/director shows a hell of a lot of promise. I really hope that he has some more projects in the pipeline and receives a little more funding to make those visions a reality. Great work.

Intriguingly creepy beginning. Silly middle. Disappointing end.

[The_Dead_See · 5/10 · 5 October 2014]

Remember when you were watching "Lost" on TV ten years ago (yep it was ten years ago) and you adored the first, and maybe the second, seasons but then partway through the series you started to get the uncomfortable feeling that this wasn't going to be an intelligent, coherently thought-out story at all. That the writers were just making up new questions and cliffhangers as they went along with no intention of answering them in a satisfying or even intelligible way?

The Signal is very much like a condensed version of "Lost" in this respect. It begins slowly, showing great potential for developing intriguing and likable characters. It builds masterfully, layering increasingly creepy and atmospheric events one on top of the other. The average viewer swallows it down readily, reveling in the creepiness, delighted to be taken on an apparently intelligent and thoughtful excursion into sci-fi horror.

Then about 60 minutes in, you start having little conversations with yourself along the lines of "This better have a good explanation at the end". About 75 minutes in and you're starting to get that same sinking feeling you had during "Lost" where you realize it's not going to have a good explanation at all but you're now too invested to just turn it off. You have to continue to the end out just to see how badly you've been conned.

The answer is, pretty badly. By the time The Signal actually takes on its own plot shape (instead of just being a build of odd events) it turns out to be a derivative and nonsensical disappointment with the motivations of the antagonists never explained in any meaningful way. Worse still, there are scripted physics upsets that push far beyond the boundaries of belief and that would elicit a "come on, really!" even from a hardcore anime fan. An example is the alien fists that can pulverize the earth Incredible Hulk style, but with no thought to the fact that the very human shoulder above them would be destroyed long before the ground would, not to mention the fact that any such force comes from waist, shoulder and torso, not fist, for example...

Ultimately The Signal is a big dupe, a tease - pulling you in with a promise of original and intelligent sci-fi but proving to be little more than an exercise in stringing the viewer along sans payoff. If you are one of the rare individuals who can enjoy a movie purely for a journey with no destination, or for the aesthetics and cinematography alone, then you might enjoy it and certainly won't feel like your time was wasted. But if you're the type of person who likes setups paid off, questions answered, motivations explained, even to a tiny degree, then you'll likely be upset by the time the credits roll.

good, but some loose ends ...

[ksf-2 · 7/10 · 5 November 2022]

Three friends are out road-tripping in the desert. Nic and haley are dating, but there are speed bumps in their relationship; nic has some condition, which is more of an issue for himself than anyone else. When they stop to investigate a signal they have located in an abandoned shack, they wake up in a medical facility. Now they are being questioned by doctor damon (fishburne). But when nic asks to visit haley, they refuse. And her progress notes are mysteriously blank. It's a bit of a mind ****. I mean mind game, for the viewer, as well as nic. Is this all happening? Or is he still dreaming, in a coma, somewhere? His legs are gone, and he now has artificial limbs. He can no longer trust what he sees and feels, nor what damon tells him. Weirdness. Super-human powers. Escape. And finally... a partial explanation, at the end. Directed by bill eubank. Story by carlyle and bill eubank, and david figerio. It's not bad. Keeps us interested, but a less than satisfying ending.

Potential wasted

[arturspribeiro-109-174379 · 3/10 · 17 September 2014]

*Spoiler Alert*

The plot is very simple and the movie could have been perfectly executed as a short film, however, there are a whole lot of 'rhetorical' scenes to fill up the movie, thus substance was replaced with pseudo style and a full-length feature is born.

'Three college kids get kidnapped by aliens', which seems like a very basic formula to follow, but the director decided to overburden the movie with countless scenes that just cluttered the plot:

• Cow? - Alien prosthetics - Secret codes and riddles - Over use of slow-motion - River scene - Weird locals - Guns to kill locals

...and many more - none of which are explained - and, in my honest opinion, add any style which is what I think the director was aiming for. The special effects and the actors (which weren't too terrible), could have benefited from a well thought out script.

3 stars for the effects which were the only redeeming quality of the movie. As someone in the forum pointed out, this is what happens when hipsters try to make sci-fi. There are some hipster sci-fi enthusiasts out there judging from the score and some reviews but there is a large majority that wants coherency in what they watch.

Great but not for everyone

[jrwygant · 8/10 · 13 September 2015]

"The Signal" is more horror film than sci-fi. It's about three people trapped in a threatening environment they do not understand. It is also about reality, and how our concept of it can easily be shaken by unexpected circumstances that are inconsistent with our past experiences and perceptions. In the early portion of the film there is a brief reference to Philip Dick, the master of reality tales, and to his book "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep," which became the basis for the film "Blade Runner." Later references capture some of the mystique of "The Matrix" and also an often overlooked film from 1997, "The Cube."

Comments posted here about "The Signal" seem to be sharply divided: viewers seem to either hate it or love it. The displeasure is easy to understand. Those who expected a sci-fi story with a lot of techno-gadgets and special effects are likely to be disappointed. The same applies to those who are uncomfortable with the concept of victimization, a common basis for horror films and a key element in "The Signal." But those who like to read Philip Dick or who enjoyed "The Cube" will find much to admire in this film, a low budget effort with a smart script.

Good ideas, maybe, but so very few and FAR BETWEEN

[jrarichards · 6/10 · 11 August 2018]

The Eubanks' "The Signal" plays with its audience in ways acceptable and (mostly) unacceptable. It's dressed up in quite a slick way, with some natural beauty, an interesting-ish "who is the mystery hacker?" start-point, some reasonable looking hi-tech and so on; and it also mixes normal film storytelling with "found footage". But it somehow finds time for an entirely irrelevant first mini-scene, and indeed, though it's not exactly lengthy at 93 minutes including credits, a viewer not possessed with the patience of Job is going to find the fast-forward button a VERY tempting option.

Truly speaking, there is 15 minutes of content here and no amount of special effects or portentous dialogue can disguise the fact that we're left ENDLESSLY hoping for enlightenment and spectacular plot development that does come a little bit in fact ... but by the time it does we've already given up much or most of any hope with which we may have come to or started the film.

Ironically, against that background, we are never fully shown what is going on here, while our characters are forgettable in the extreme. Laurence Fishburne's is the best-known face, but his unwillingness to really help or be nice is EVEN MORE tiresome for the audience than it is for the characters.

No spoilers on plot here at all, and somewhere down the line "The Signal" may indeed have an interesting SHORT story to tell. It might conceivably be described as "cult" sci fi - but to be a member of that cult you're going to need have no more-pressing alternative engagements of any kind whatsoever...

A movie as stupid as it thinks it is smart

[vikascoder · 3/10 · 4 August 2014]

Very minor spoilers.

Take Dark City, remove any semblance of atmosphere or art design from it, dumb down the story to a three line pitch and put some bad teen actors in it and you will have The Signal. The Signal does not offer anything unique but does offer such an ill-written story that you will be left scratching your head wondering what on earth made you to waste an hour and a half of your life watching such trash.

Well it starts with a group of smart teenagers (from MIT of course, has to be MIT right? ) tracking a MIT server hacker (?) called Nomad as they make a detour to a place which leads to some strange incidents to occur. What is strange about the incident would be explained fairly quickly by Laurence Fishburne who pitches in with his laziest paycheck collecting performance ever. The MIT students are not that smart to avoid going into a Blair Witchesque house to explore things and one thing leads to another. Then things get really bizarre, uh well not so much. The screenwriter runs out of ideas as to what needs to be done to make the setting seem weird. Okay mmm why not throw in an extended interrogation sequence with the scowling teen lead in a hospital setting? Half an hour will be spent with the teen whimpering and crying and Fishburne smiling and jotting stuff on a notepad. No dramatic visuals, no imagery, no imagination whatsoever. This is followed by a lame ass attempt to escape from the mental institution to redneck Texas Chainsaw Massacre land. Also the protagonists have metal limbs for some reason and the girl in the group is being umm saved by the suspicious astro doctors for some future experimentation? This is followed by some really unnecessary and badly executed action sequence.

But the end is what will make you peel off your face. The way "Nomad" connection is revealed will make you question your sanity. The reason why they experimented with the leads with metal limbs is unexplained and so lame (why would they need to do it?) that you will want to be lobotomized rather than see another minute of this travesty.

I followed this movie with "Under the Skin". I can tell you that this was the worst movie watching day of my life. You have been warned.

Interesting, slow-paced sci-fi that could have used a lot more depth

[vithiet · 6/10 · 31 December 2018]

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.

apart from the ending, an interesting failure at best

[inkwarp · 6/10 · 24 July 2014]

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 : )

Unoriginal

[cristi684 · 6/10 · 29 October 2014]

I thought it would have something to say about this film, but after watching it's impossible not to say a few. First, it's just a thriller with more mystery. Only one scene was SF, otherwise nothing.

Secondly, I expected to have some action somewhere, but cameras have revealed too much slow & motion effect, which seems unoriginal.

And thirdly and finally, all related to lack of originality, the film is a lot of scenes copied from a series like "Roswell" and movies like "Dark City" and "Cube". Too bad they were inspired too much. Too bad I have to give him note 6, but that's it.

Instead, the actors play well. The script is good, sometimes.

listen for it

[lee_eisenberg · 6/10 · 4 November 2014]

"The Signal" starts out a bit vague, but then the plot sets in. They manage to set everything up so that you can't be certain whether it's real or imagined. I read that the movie is partly based on Plato's Allegory of the Cave, in which people see a limited reality (also the basis of "The Matrix").

Laurence Fishburne's enigmatic professor is the best character in the movie, and Lin Shaye's* aging character. "The Signal" isn't any kind of great movie, but I thought that it was OK. Mystifying, more than anything. A similar movie is "The Quiet Earth" from New Zealand.

*She also played the sunburned neighbor in "There's Something About Mary" and the retiring flight attendant in "Snakes on a Plane".

Feels like a short film dragged out to feature length.

[JoeCGoBears · 4/10 · 11 September 2014]

This film has some good aspects such as the cinematography and a lot of the acting but it was really boring. The script thought it was smarter than it was so I just wanted it to hurry up and reveal the obvious twists.

I don't like watching films that are made simply to showcase the director's talent with special effects, sound and shot composition. All of which were very impressive but making us sit through 90 minutes of what is essentially a showreel is just wasting everyone's time.

Not smart, not interesting to watch. I think this Brenton Thwaites guy has got chops though and there is some undeniable talent behind the camera, i'd like to see what they can all do once Hollywood puts them on a real film.

Forgettable - I just watched it for a second time (years apart) without realising it.

[Mikelikesnotlikes · 6/10 · 4 April 2017]

It's one of those "technically excellent - low logic" films. Great if you're drunk or incredibly bored.

The logic falls down from the start where the hacker turns out to be aliens. Doesn't work, doesn't make any sense. The Area 51 premise, with the weirdo extras, roads, earth vehicles, doesn't work with the ending. The limb replacement is not explained and does not drive the plot. By the way, there is no plot.

I feels suspiciously like half the script blew away on a windy night and then the writer desperately jammed the scenes they had left together in a hodge-podge of fail.

This could have been a good movie - -it just needed to be tied together with LOGIC.

Scattered Potential

[billygoat1071 · 5/10 · 29 July 2014]

The Signal has a lot of intriguing ideas in its head. It is a sci-fi film with a ton of other genres, it begins from coming-of-age, to a complicated love story, then becomes a horror thriller, a psychological thriller, and somehow instantly jumps as an action with fantasy aesthetics. This case might make the film a fully packed cinematic experience, there is a strong hint of a greater movie within all of these, but when it reveals its twists, it becomes the other way around, for one big reason. The film does have a cool direction and it does deserve a credit for being sort of original, but it still falls short when it comes to its actual story.

The film works before all of the bombast happens. The hero, Nic, is handicapped, indicating that he's a really humble person, then there is a brief relationship that is about to be torn apart because of Nic's priorities. Then that decision stumbles themselves with a tougher situation, which might help them forget their personal problems and focus more on the real risk, but nobody cares about that. Though it could have been interesting if the relationship subplot has been anywhere since it shows some flashbacks of a possibly better movie. The film instead continues asking bigger questions about its heroes being contaminated by some alien contact. The mysteries behind the laboratory rooms is very intriguing, which reminiscence the classic thrillers when it's all analyzing and finding queer discoveries instead of gore and jump scares.

Once they escaped from the facility, the next act is meant to be exciting but it's rather clunky. The story suddenly goes through a motion of random events, that even a long absent character just suddenly pops out because the plot needed him to. The thrills here are cheap compared to the second act and the suspension of disbelief gets larger and larger, it's almost appropriate to wish that it could have been a straightforward superhero movie. Even the special effects can see that. Those gimmicky slow-mos and movie-preview-like-transition comes close to a Zack Snyder + Michael Bay style. Still, the visuals are much better when it sticks to the art-house shot images and Terrence Malick-inspired montages. Those scene can at least concentrate on what's happening than just being pretentious with the CGI. The acting is fine: Brenton Thwaites somewhat proves that he could be a competent lead character in movies like this, and Laurence Fishburne gives a slight sense of enticing strangeness to Thwaite's opposite.

The Signal is all interesting stories and little else. The twist in the very end cannot be exactly explained without giving enough spoilers, but to describe it, it sure is supposed to be mind-blowingly weird. Since the film doesn't get to explore enough of its possible subtext or any sign of intention from the villain, it instead looks pretty (and kind of hilariously) silly. The movie itself does seems like a mess; there's this emotional montage, then another horror movie concept there. This storytelling is just too heavy handed. Yes, it's charmingly original, but it also deserves some focusing and at least a half-decent development to each of its move. The film just makes the audience beg for more behind the idea than the idea itself.

Visually arresting, methodically paced, and almost perfectly executed.

[BrentHankins · 8/10 · 12 June 2014]

In an age where astronomical budgets and A-list stars dominate the sci-fi genre, it's seldom that you stumble across a film that strives to present a unique vision, which is precisely why The Signal is such a breath of fresh air. Directed by Will Eubank (who co-wrote the screenplay), the film follows a trio of MIT students on a cross-country trip, who decide to take a detour in order to track down and expose a malicious hacker.

Arriving at their destination, Nic (Brenton Thwaites) and Jonah (Beau Knapp) find nothing but an abandoned, dilapidated structure. Haley (Olivia Cooke) elects to stay behind as the guys explore the grounds, and just as they stumble across evidence that they're on the right track, all hell breaks loose.

Sometime later, Nic awakens with no memory of the previous events and finds himself trapped in a sterile, hospital-like facility, with Haley in a coma and Jonah held in an adjacent cell. His only point of contact is Damon (Laurence Fishburne), the facility's mysterious administrator, who dons a Hazmat suit for every interaction. Damon wants to know everything about "the signal" - how Nic found it, when he first discovered it - but Nic's only concern is getting himself and his companions to safety.

It's nearly impossible to reveal anything more about the plot without wandering into spoiler territory, but rest assured that The Signal does a spectacular job of approaching familiar sci-fi tropes from a completely different perspective. Eubank spent eight years as a cinematographer, and his experience behind the camera combined with his indie-film sensibilities allow him to get a tremendous amount of mileage out of The Signal's $4 million budget.

The pacing is slow and methodical, doling out information in carefully measured doses before opening the floodgates during the film's climax. There are some truly breathtaking visuals here, particularly during the third act, with one jaw-dropping shot after another building toward a startling mindfuck of a conclusion. If you're tired of seeing Hollywood continually rehashing the same boring sci-fi stories with new faces and bigger budgets, then track down The Signal and buy yourself a ticket. You won't be sorry.

-- Brent Hankins

Not as deep as director wanted to make it!

[leonidasoriginal · 7/10 · 7 November 2020]

This is one of those movies you like, but they leave you with some negative opinion because you ask yourself "what's the point of this movie or is there any at all".

Signal has no specific point to make. It leaves you with simple conclusion, that is SO SIMPLE you are not accepting and therefore you look for some deeper meaning to actually meaningless movie.

SO, watch this for some interesting atmosphere, but don't try to find "Morpheus" depth in it, because there is none.

Visually interesting, but pointless or in best case simple story. To make it short... bla bla bla, we are not living on the Earth.

GRRRR! I hate good movies with way to simplified endings.

I do have to say this is one of those movies that can develop into franchise if they try to. And it is one of those rare movies sequel can be rated much higher if they do it right!

Not

[ropelawshiel · 3/10 · 12 June 2020]

Another Syfy is trying to be clever, predictable, full of plot holes, just dull, and the 90 minutes seemed like forever. So many good films to watch on my watchlist. Why do I fall for these time-wasters?

The secret language of computers......

[FlashCallahan · 7/10 · 4 March 2015]

Three students venture into the Nevada desert in search of a notorious hacker, and discover they have been drawn into a plot with major repercussions.

Intrigued by reports that a mysterious hacker named Nomad has breached MIT's advanced security system and exposed its flaws, freshmen Nic and Jonah hop in the car with Nick's girlfriend Hailey, and attempt to track down the elusive computer genius.

Eventually, the trail of clues leads the three students into the Nevada desert. They finally come face-to-face with Nomad just before everything goes black.

Later, regaining consciousness in a high-security government facility, a confused Nic quickly finds that the worst is yet to come......

The past few months have an absolute treat for people who like absolutely bonkers, mend- bending Science Fiction.

We had Predestination, then Coherence, and now this, a mix of Chronicle, V for Vendetta, and even a little Solaris.

But unlike the other two films, the final third does kind of ruin the brilliant set up, as it just goes a little too bonkers for its own good.

My perception of the film is that it's all about the power of the computer, and how many just take them for granted. After all, they are part of our everyday life, and most households have one, but only a select few go deeper, much deeper beyond the screen, and the two main protagonists are these sort of people, and the titular signal is one that they yearn for.

But what, or who, is The Signal. After the initial discovery of the house, it's as if the film makers have purposely gone back in time to the eighties, a time where home computers, Wi-Fi, and Internet were mostly ideas and for business use, so for Nic and Joseph, this could be alien for them, as suggested, Nic gets pretty vexed about a clock.

But why was Nomad contacting them? Was it because of their intellect, their ability to go deeper into the proverbial Matrix, so he had better subjects to probe?

It's definitely a watch more than once movie, sounds from other movies are clearly evident, and like The Sixth Sense, things make more 'sense' on repeat viewings.

Sadly, the ending doesn't support the remarkable build up, and despite the admittedly neat twist ending, it's just too over the top for its own good.

Fishburne hasn't been this good for a long long time, and he really elevates the movie into something whenever his calm Damon is on screen.

Well worth viewing, but flawed.....