By Roger Moore
FILM: The Signal
CAST: Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke, Beau Knapp, Laurence Fishburne, Lin Shaye
DIRECTION: William Eubank
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.
The Signal begins as three college kids played by Brenton Thwaites, Olivia Cooke and Beau Knapp are driving a battered Volvo cross-country. They’re MIT students, and they’re being hounded by a hacker.
“Nomad” is “messing with us again,” Nic (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.
Nic, who suffers from a debilitating illness that has him on crutches, ignores his girlfriend’s first warning. (“You guys should just stop taunting him.”)
Nic used to be a jock, a cross country star. Now, 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.
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 “Nic, you know this is stupid, right?” has no effect.
Next thing you know, screams, a supernatural event and Nic 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. Nic’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 centre of this, and Knapp (Super 8) a credible foil, even if the hacker with thick glasses is a genre cliché.
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 Nic’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. - MCT
Master illusionist
FILM: Houdini
CAST: Adrien Brod, Kristen Connolly
DIRECTION: Uli Edel
A
s one of the most fascinating characters of early 20th-century entertainment, Houdini’s life has been covered in several books and films.
The new two-part History miniseries, Houdini, starring Academy Award winner Adrien Brody as Harry Houdini and Kristen Connolly as his wife, Bess, shares the story of Houdini from a different perspective than past projects.
Based on the novel Houdini: A Mind in Chains: A Psychoanalytic Portrait by Bernard C Meyer, the miniseries chronicles the life of a man who could defy death through his stunts, his visions and his mastery of illusion.
Part one focuses on the beginnings of Houdini as a boy named Erich Weiss, who enlists his brother Dash to help him practice magic after seeing his very first magician in his hometown of Appleton, Wisconsin.
He changes his name to “Harry Houdini” after his favourite magician Robert Houdin and starts out performing card tricks at sideshows in a traveling circus with his wife Bess as a “two-bit” act. His career soon takes off on the American vaudeville circuit as a master illusionist before achieving international fame as an escape artist, performing for the likes of royalty and celebrities.
He becomes the world-famous master magician “The Great Houdini”. But through his fame, Harry is recruited by MI5 to run espionage missions with William Melville to spy on the Kaiser in Berlin while balancing his death-defying acts in front of massive audiences.
Part two examines how Houdini must adapt to the constantly changing modern world as the industrial age comes to an end. As the invention of moving pictures threatens to steal Harry’s spotlight in 1914, he has to come up with bigger and better escapes to get his audience back, and decides to bring the show to them.
When his mother dies, Harry is determined to communicate with her through mediums and clairvoyants, however, they prove to be unsuccessful. He then dedicates his life exposing and debunking these fake spiritualists, including Arthur Conan Doyle’s wife, Lady Doyle.
In the final years of his life, Harry promises Bess no more death-dying feats and goes back to stage magic before succumbing to a succession of fatal blows to the abdomen from a disgruntled fan while backstage in his dressing room after performing his last act in Detroit.
Brody brings his own quality to his portrayal of Houdini. Kristen Connolly captures many of the essential qualities for the role of his wife, in her supportive yet impassioned reactions to Harry’s life and career.
A dark tale
FILM: Wer
CAST: Brian Scott O’Connor, A J Cook, Sebastian Roche, Vik Sahay
DIRECTION: Brent Bell
Taking place in Lyon, France, Wer is a visual treat. Attorney Kate (A J Cook) is called to defend Talan (Brian Scott O’Connor) after he is charged with the murders of a vacationing family.
Kate is aided by her assistant Eric (Vikram Sahay), a computer hacker, who left America under threat of criminal proceedings and former lover PhD in forensics, Gavin (Simon Quarterman) an English man.
Talan has to undergo medical testing prior to court proceedings and it is found that he suffers from a very rare medical condition that causes his extreme features, blackouts and crippling pain. While undertaking the seizure test, Talan undergoes an incredible transformation, that throws the case into a tail spin.
Instead of defending Talan, Kate, Gavin, and Eric must now fight for their lives and side with the police. Everything she thought she knew was real, was a lie. She uncovers a dark secret, one so unbelievable, it would be impossible to believe except for the hard evidence.
Wer is deep and dark, with a few good turns. The special effects are excellent.
DVDs courtesy: Saqr Entertainment Stores, Doha
