New To Blu: The Signal

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Have you heard The Signal? Read our review of this week's blu-ray release.


"If I'm wearing this suit,
you know I mean business."
This week may be loaded with tons of awesome horror releases, but there's another movie coming home to haunt your other worldly dreams this week. It's called The Signal and its one of the most uninspired, cliche ridden pieces of sci-fi drivel we've seen in years.

The Signal starts out strong with a creepy introduction and a modern theme that will wet your appetite for a story about hackers and modern technology. Then it turns tail and heads down an endless cavern of mediocrity that isn't only disappointing but slightly annoying.

It borrows (steals) elements of numerous other science fiction films and amalgamates them into one tediously boring ninety minute feature. The Signal tries to be original at the onset but ends up reaching its hand in to the candy bowl of banality over and over again as audiences are treated to scene after scene of plodding interconnected scenes that all tie in to one totally expected conclusion.

Not only is the overall presentation of story bad, but we get Laurence Fishburne playing it up for all its worth with another cheesy role that is no more inspired than his performance in that other stinker, The Colony. Suddenly, this respected actor is making low budget genre bombs and straight to video releases that are nowhere near his caliber or talent. At this point, he should stick with the successful Hannibal series and stay far away from these career mocking cinematic choices. Fishburne feels tired here, relegated to mysterious dialogue that seems shamefully written and poorly conceived.

"Does this mirror make me look fat?
No. Sexy. That's it. Sexy."
The Signal also stars a youthful cast featuring Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, and Beau Knapp. All three of them look really pretty (Olivia) and bring relatively believable performances to The Signal, but their efforts are as fruitless as the weak script and meandering attempts to be cool for its core teenage audience.

If anything, The Signal has some nice looking effects and a couple well choreographed action sequences. Other than that, this is just another genre entry gone awry under the control of sophomore director, William Eubank; a man that has a hard time separating his apparent love for Neill Blomkamp from his own lesser grade directorial talents.

If you're looking for a little time to waste, consider watching The Signal. It's a film that has nothing to say that hasn't been said before.


-CG