• Home
• About

White Noise

More like, White Crap.

I liked the premise before I even saw the movie and I enjoyed the beginning of this, but if fell apart after Act I.

• Structure/Plot, Character

The first problem was that Micheal Keaton had no need to hear from his deceased wife. His general grief did not call out for special healing. Even though we learned later that his wife reached out to him to help others (which is also problematic; later), the story first needed a dramatic pull for Keaton to believe and get involved. Everyone else in the story needed a message from their departed loved ones so it only makes sense that the main character should have, as well.

The story veered off-track when Keaton became the hero to strangers acting on his wife’s warnings. Part of the success of Ghost was discovering and bringing justice to Patrick Swayze’s murderer. Part of the failure of Frequency was having the main character run around to help strangers. Here, too, the main action was removed from the main character. It didn’t connect to him emotionally and, thus, it didn’t connect to the viewer.

Another issue with the above is that the victims in this movie were killed because of their association with that fat guy, the original white noise guy; they were killed as a warning (confirmed by the clairvoyant Keaton saw) for everyone to stop interfering with the afterlife.

The story reached the point of no return when it came up with a new angle- the people seen in the white noise were still alive! The movie couldn’t explain this because it was just too stupid and removed from the classic element of communication with the dead.

As for that killer near the end in the abondoned factory…well, that confused me. Why did those three demons need an intermediary when they did other things on their own?

The movie failed to capture an important moment- when Keaton first learned that his wife was in a serious accident. The movie skipped from him being worried late at night to the next day when it was all over the news. I figured this was done to not steal the drama from the moment when she was officially pronounced dead, but just a second of this natural reaction wouldn’t have hurt that other scene and, besides, the movie hardly showed Keaton’s face when the two police officers came to his door (to inform him about his wife).

• Logic

It was too easy for Keaton to set up his own EVP system.

• Other

Missed opportunity for humor: Before we saw Keaton finalizing his home EVP system, we could’ve seen him at Best Buy checking out a TV, a salesperson telling him its features, and Keaton saying to him, “I’ll take five.”

Subscribe to the RSS feed and follow the conversation.