Science fiction cinema doesn’t get much more beautifully strange than “The Signal.”
An alien-interaction thriller that borrows from generations of such films that preceded it, it has the visual tone, production design and especially sound design to rival the best recent films in the genre.
It features a compelling young cast and a wizened, inscrutable veteran of the genre as the chief antagonist.
And then the filmmakers trip over themselves with a too-conventional/too exposition-heavy “Let us explain this to you” finale that kind of unravels the strangeness that preceded it.
“Signal ” begins as “Catfish,” three college kids played Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp are driving a battered Volvo cross-country. They’re M.I.T. students, and they’re being hounded by a hacker.
“Nomad” is “messing with us again,” Nick (Thwaites) warns Jonah (Knapp). They taunt the hacker, and the hacker taunts back — turning on the camera of a nearby computer in the hotel room they’ve just checked into, posting traffic camera shots of their trek, messing with their heads.
Nick, who suffers from a debilitating illness that has him on crutches, ignores his girlfriend’s first warning.
“You guys should just stop taunting him.”
Nick used to be a jock, a cross country star. Now, he’s looking at a less and less mobile future, he’s moving that girlfriend, Haley (Cooke) across country where she’ll attend Cal Tech. He’s irked, and he’s arrogant.
“It’s CRAZY not to go after this guy.”
He and Jonah trace Nomad to an address in the middle of the Nevada desert. “This doesn’t look right,” especially in the dark. And “Nick, you know this is stupid, right?” has no effect.
Next thing you know, screams, a supernatural event and Nick wakes up in what appears to be an underground research lab of the type we’ve seen in films from “The Andromeda Strain” to “The Stand,” where everybody wears elaborate haz-mat suits, including Dr. Damon (Laurence Fishburne), who quietly, calmly, asks questions. And gives one answer.
“You’ve made contact.”
Director William Eubank handles the script’s “How can I get out of this place?” sequence with skill. Nick’s methodical problem solving and reasoning, and his rising rage (he can see Haley is in a coma in another sealed room) bring out his arrogance.
“You’re dinosaurs with government grants,” he fumes. “You’re a relic protecting ruins.”
Is that him insulting Dr. Damon, or some higher intelligence infecting him?
Thwaites, the Aussie actor who is Prince Phillip in “Maleficent,” makes a great, empathetic presence at the center of this, and Knapp (“Super 8”) a credible foil, even if the hacker with thick glasses is a genre cliche.
But what makes “The Signal” work, up until it turns predictable, is the world they place these characters in. Meghan C. Rogers’ production design, David Lanzenberg’s cinematography (lovely flashbacks to Nick’s cross-country sprints in the woods in springtime), Nima Fakhrara’s eerie score and the overall sound design are top drawer.
So even though “Signal” isn’t great sci-fi, you’d never know it to look at it and listen to it.
　
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for some thematic elements, violence and language
Cast: Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp, Laurence Fishburne, Lin Shaye
Credits: Directed by William Eubank, written by Carlyle Eubank, William Eubank and David Frigerio . A Focus Features release.
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