Sometimes, all it takes is a good image to get me interested in a film.  A while back I saw the BluRay release of The Signal (2014) and the static image of actor Laurence Fishborne in a hazmat suit was enough to get me curious to see the film itself…

I checked up information on the film and its plot sounded interesting as well.  I put it on my Netflix cue but wound up having the film pop up on a premium cable channel and recorded it.

About two weeks ago I saw it.

Now, its unusual to take this long to review any movie, but so disappointing was this film that I essentially tried to scrub it from my mind.  For those who only care what I think about the film, I hated it.  Don’t bother.  Not recommended.

Now let me pull a 180 and say: This film could have been amazing.

It starts with a trio of nerdy yet attractive young friends on a road trip across the United States.  The trio consists of Nic (Brenton Thwaites), his girlfriend Haley (Olivia Cooke), and his best friend Jonah (Beau Knapp).  Nic has a condition (we’re never told what exactly) which is slowly robbing him of the ability to walk.  Nic uses crutches and, as the film unfolds, we find he’s in a very dark place indeed.  Despite his youth, he knows his condition will only worsen and that what’s left of his life, for all intents and purposes, is very limited.

The friends are making this cross country trip for the sake of Haley.  She is relocating from the east coast and MIT (where the trio studies) to the west coast of the United States.  She will be there at least a year while Nic and Jonah return to the east coast.  While she very much loves Nic, she worries this move mark the end of their relationship.  Nic, on the other hand, looks at Haley’s move as a way for her to be freed of him as, again, he feels there is not much of a future remaining with him.

As they travel, the viewer also discover that Nic and Jonah are tracking a strange signal on the internet.  Before their trip someone had broken into the MIT mainframes and destroyed the information on them, something that was blamed on the trio, and they want to discover who this person is and expose them.  As they near Nevada, they get a new signal from this individual, who calls himself Nomad, and discover that the source of the signal is only a hundred miles from their current location.

Naturally, they decide to investigate and on an eerie night they find a run down shack in the middle of the desert.  This is where the signal emanates from.  They un-wisely decide to investigate and all hell breaks loose.

Up until this point, I absolutely loved this movie.  The trio of friends were easy to root for and all three actors delivered believable, sympathetic characterizations.  I was so into the film.

Unfortunately, one can’t grade a film by its parts.

After all hell breaks loose in and out of the shack, Nic awakens in a bed in what appears to be a hospital.  He’s wheeled out and questioned by Damon (Laurence Fishborne, who spends almost the entire film in that hazmat suit) about what happened to him.  The questions are mysterious, silly, and sometimes more profound.  Nic wants to know what happened to his friends and Damon is unwilling to give answers.

Eventually Nic spots Haley in a bed in one of the hospital rooms.  According to Damon, she’s in a coma.  What has become of Jonah is a mystery, at least for now.  Later still Nic discovers he’s been changed (I won’t reveal much more) and he desperately tries to escape his captors with Haley in tow.

The film moves one, becoming something of a chase film while keeping its central mysteries, all of which are revealed by the end and all of which are so damn stupid and obvious (yet nonsensical) that they made me seriously consider throwing heavy objects at my TV screen.

What a disappointment!

Again, the acting is good.  The opening minutes of the film are excellent.  Even some of the stuff involving the eerie hospital are quite good as well.  And for a fairly low budget feature, The Signal has some truly great effects (especially with regard to Nic’s “changes”).

But good-god-almighty what a terrible, terrible last act.  I can’t help but think the story was meant to be longer.  Perhaps instead of a movie, this should have been a mini-series.  Certainly the film’s end was very open and inconclusive, as if it was meant to be the first part of a larger work.

But it’s not one I care to follow, at least based on what I saw here.

Again, what an incredible disappointment.

Below is the trailer.  The trailer, IMHO, is amazing.  Far better than the film its selling you.