Do you have an on-line nemesis? What if you could do something about it? Nic, Jonah and Haley (Brenton Thwaites, Beau Knapp & Olivia Cooke, respectively) are driving cross-country. Why? Not sure, but this seems a last stand of sorts. Nic and Haley are close, but moving apart both literally and figuratively. You get the impression that this poor-but-mundane trio won’t ever be the same again. I leave it to the reader/viewer to decide whether that’s a good thing.
Morning in a motel, Nic discovers they’ve been hacked again. An anonymous nemesis they know just as “Nomad” does something mildly annoying and then taunts the boys. Nic and Jonah, who we guess have computing skills on their own, I suppose, by default — for they clearly don’t have a whole lot of other skills, trace the root to Nevada, where, check it out – just happens to be on the way they’re going. Gosh. What luck.
I don’t have to tell you how stupid it is to go looking for a fight with somebody you’ve never met before, right? And before you know it, the trio is at an o
ff-road trailer, at night in the middle of the Nevada desert. Tell ya what, I don’t know what you were going for, but you found a pretty good horror set up. In the “things that only happen in movies,” Nic and Jonah actually enter the trailer. Yup, horror. Outside, Haley screams and then there’s Nic alone in a hospital ward. And that’s it. Good luck.
The rest of the film is Nic playing mind games with Laurence Fishburne in a hazmat suit. Was there an attack? Was Nomad involved? Where is he? Where are his friends? Is this a cautionary tale for nerds? Do you like dudes in hazmat suits and mysteries that may or may not get solved? Do you like it when the hero is confined (in every sense of the word)? There are worse pieces of forgettable sci-fi. The Signal isn’t as smooth as The Arrival or as engaging as Attack the Block; all that, however, puts it in better company than, perhaps, it deserves.
Hipsters out lookin’ for trouble
Trapped inside a psyche ward bubble
Could be some sleaze
Or maybe E.T.s
Escape and the mystery will double
Rated PG-13, 95 Minutes
D: William Eubank
W: Carlyle Eubank, William Eubank and David Frigerio
Genre: Deliberately confusing sci-fi
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Alien anal probe conspiracy theorists
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Worrywarts
