The Signal

Why doesn't have the french version???

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I can't believe I watched an entire movie just to watch Laurence Fishburne's head turn. Because that's pretty much what this movie is all about. They should have condensed the entire movie into a 15 minute exposition and then written a story from there. It doesn't work as a Twilight Zone Twist At The End. Then again, maybe not. I really wasn't interested enough in the characters to see more about them. Fishburne's got to start turning down these crappy roles. He can do much better than this. As far as his "acting" was concerned, this was a reprise of his Matrix role. I could close my eyes and see him talking to Neo the whole time. Very disappointed.

This movie has a slow pace, I know. That doesn't mean it's a bad one. A lot of people are over analysing every scene and image they see in the movie, instead of enjoying a simple story with a lot of photography design. Don't expect a lot of action on it, but do expect amazing photography, immersing atmospheric story, good acting and a few good surprises. One advice I would give is NOT watching the WHOLE TRAILER form the movie. After 1:30 minutes it shows too much and could spoil a lot of surprises. Just trust that the first part is to make contrast with what is coming next. I loved the photography, was the best from the movie by far. The story is good, and it develops interestingly. The acting is good and everyone plays well the parts. Great job, Mr. Eubank! I definitely recommend to watch this, for all the sci-fi lovers, and especially the ones that appreciate non blockbuster, plastic, cliché movies, and enjoy different ways of doing cinema.

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.

The Signal_360P

source: The Signal

If only I could rate this a zero. Which is what it was. Anyone who actually claims there is meaning in this film is either lying or pretending to understand what in the end is gibberish. It reminds me of the idiots who flocked to pay 20 thousand dollars or more for the "brilliant" 4 year old's paintings only to have them be exposed later as random paint being slapped onto the canvas bu the parents lol. The witless can find meaning in anything :) It's total crap. The director can't even explain what he was trying to do. Here is this film in a nutshell. Boy, friend and girlfriend are contacted by a hacker. They pursue hacker. At the very end boy escapes ridiculously contrived situation to see he is in fact on an alien spaceship. So apparently the story is about a particularly cruel set of aliens who kidnap people to play mind games with them? Oh man I could go on and on. Everything else in this film is simply silly slow motion scenes, artsy film techniques (wow look at me filming this canyon in orange light and in slow motion - it almost looks as good as a csi Miami episode). There is absolutely no story here. the director thought making pretty pictures was enough. His rambling attempts to explain what it was to audiences shows that even HE doesn't have a clue what he was trying to say. I love it when people who are trying to sound smart use words like metaphor to describe this meaningless drivel and insult those of us who call this what it was. meaningless. This isn't the only film that the bandwagon groupies are heaping fake praise on here on IMDb. All 9 of the people who pretend to like this film will undoubtedly feel real smart as they pretend to understand the "true" meaning of this nonsense. They are as pretentious as the director of this complete waste of time. There are music videos with more meaningful rambling images and music. In fact that's a fairly accurate description of what this really was. IMDb has become worthless when it comes to movie ratings. It's pathetic that there is no policing of the tactic of a low number of people being able to pad the ratings of their favorite artsy trash film. No one really likes this movie. Absolutely no one. It's not a film at all. Just mostly random images, events that lead absolutely nowhere, and out of place music that does nothing to set the atmosphere. Even Lawrence Fishburn could not save this utter worthless crap. DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

From the trailer I expected The Signal to be a sort of Blair Witch take on an alien encounter with some retro, creep-tastic Hazmat encounters. While there were certainly elements of that in the film, the actual storyline exceeded my expectations, as did the philosophical undercurrent to the film. This is a movie that explores the dichotomy of human nature, specifically the war between logic and reason, and emotion. These characters are fighting themselves as much as they are extrinsic factors. Kudos to the Brenton Thwaites (an actor I'd never heard of before now) for keeping me emotionally and mentally engaged throughout the movie and holding his own against the filmic might of Laurence Fishburne. In short, this felt a bit like Dark City meets Signs, and I really enjoyed the weird twists and turns in a narrative I fully expected to be formulaic and predictable.

I can't believe I watched an entire movie just to watch Laurence Fishburne's head turn. Because that's pretty much what this movie is all about. They should have condensed the entire movie into a 15 minute exposition and then written a story from there. It doesn't work as a Twilight Zone Twist At The End. Then again, maybe not. I really wasn't interested enough in the characters to see more about them. Fishburne's got to start turning down these crappy roles. He can do much better than this. As far as his "acting" was concerned, this was a reprise of his Matrix role. I could close my eyes and see him talking to Neo the whole time. Very disappointed.