I must admit that I might not have watched The Last Sign had I not been aware of its presence on the IMDb bottom 100, which I've found to be a reliable list of unintentionally hilarious movies. While The Last Sign certainly met my "high" expectations, it was not nearly as funny as I'd hoped it would be. In fact, I felt only a few of the scenes were laughably bad; most were either dull, mediocre, or confusingly pointless.
So, what about The Last Sign makes it so bad? Well, I thought just about everything about it was bad. The strongest aspect was perhaps the idea of the story which was itself not particularly original. Some of the shots (including the opening credits) were slightly creative but they still had this amateurish feel to them, as if Douglas Law (the director) has little cinematic taste or sense or was simply working well outside of his comfort zone. Outside of these minor "strengths", I thought the script was weak and lacking in purpose, the acting mediocre (Andie MacDowell delivered a vacuous performance while Simon Le Bihan was okay except that he was dubbed (*!?!?!*) and his scenes kind of stunk), the music was intrusive, cheap sounding and forgettable, the editing and cinematography were amateurish and overall the whole thing just lacked energy and originality.
I honestly can't tell whether the filmmakers were really trying to make a good film and were let down by their lack of talent and experience or if they were just lazily plodding through weak material. Either way the result was pretty crap. If you want to see a good supernatural thriller then watch The Sixth Sense (again). Or perhaps El Maquinista (The Machinist).
So, what about The Last Sign makes it so bad? Well, I thought just about everything about it was bad. The strongest aspect was perhaps the idea of the story which was itself not particularly original. Some of the shots (including the opening credits) were slightly creative but they still had this amateurish feel to them, as if Douglas Law (the director) has little cinematic taste or sense or was simply working well outside of his comfort zone. Outside of these minor "strengths", I thought the script was weak and lacking in purpose, the acting mediocre (Andie MacDowell delivered a vacuous performance while Simon Le Bihan was okay except that he was dubbed (*!?!?!*) and his scenes kind of stunk), the music was intrusive, cheap sounding and forgettable, the editing and cinematography were amateurish and overall the whole thing just lacked energy and originality.
I honestly can't tell whether the filmmakers were really trying to make a good film and were let down by their lack of talent and experience or if they were just lazily plodding through weak material. Either way the result was pretty crap. If you want to see a good supernatural thriller then watch The Sixth Sense (again). Or perhaps El Maquinista (The Machinist).