The Signal

Hey look, it's Morpheus in a roll as a creepy Area 51 Scientist.  He walks the same, talks the same and looks the same (only fatter).  Oh, wait, that's just the shitty acting of Laurence Fishburn.  So here is the question of the day:  What do you get when you put together 3 nerds from MIT?  One who is a complete dork genius, one who is a cripple/model genius, and one who is a boarder-line hipster chick genius.  You send them on a wild goose chase to Nevada seeking revenge on "Nomad" the hacker who nailed the MIT server.  Well what do you know, they all get abducted by aliens, of course, again.  This movie was taken right out of an H.G. Wells playbook with theories and strange occurrences that scream Sci fi.  There were some really cool twists and formularies in this movie that made it work.  I was disappointed at fist thinking this was just another Area 51 rip off of some kids ending up in an underground lab, but it wasn't at all.  You keep thinking either the characters are going crazy or that something just isn't right.  With its slow steady pace, you need to keep yourself involved until the very end.  There were some flaws, like every movie.  How did the kids figure out the escape codes?  Why were they playing mind games with them for so long?  What happened to the girl?  This movie took some different ideas from a few other movies and put them together in a way that connected the alien encounter world.  It was pretty good, most likely a straight to video production but a good watch all the less, Unless your not a sci fi fan, then stay away!

FYI:  Pay attention to the "crane game" at the beginning.  There is a lot of hinting symbolism there.

**1/2