‘White Noise’ - Turn it off

In the film “White Noise,” starring Michael Keaton (remember him? Batman, Beetlejuice, etc.), a man receives messages from the great beyond through the static on his radios and televisions.

Wait, now I’m getting a message, too. It says, wait, it says…

“Crackle, zap, zap, Stay away from this movie! pop, snap, crackle, crackle.”

“White Noise” focuses on this thing called Electronic Voice Phenomenon or E.V. P. for short. When Keaton’s character, Jonathan Rivers, loses his wife, another man, Raymond Price, soon comes to him with a message that his late wife is trying to reach him through E.V.P. What follows is a seemingly endless parade of scenes with Keaton sitting in front of static television screens like the little girl in “Poltergeist,” squinting at blurry images and trying to decipher the voices with his computer. It is as interesting as watching someone type about paint drying.

When Price mysteriously dies, Rivers takes up the man’s obsession with listening to the dead and begins searching for more messages from his wife. She begins to lead him to other people near death and even tries to lead him to her killer. There really is no plot twist, which is good in a way because I got so bored I started to think of every possible plot twist that could be coming. Are there scares? Yes, there are a few of the, “whoa the phone just rang really loudly after it got really quiet,” variety but this is by no means a scary film for anyone over the age of, let’s say, 10.

Keaton is a good actor and it’s nice to see him on screen again but he is not given a lot to do and this movie definitely does not play to his strengths. In fact, all of the performances are fine and the direction by Geoffrey Sax offers up some interesting visuals when he strays away from the snowy television sets. If we’re going to blame someone, let’s blame writer Niall Johnson. Johnson takes an interesting concept and produces precious little (drama, horror, suspense, comedy) anything. In fact, it feels like there were long stretches of the movie where the only dialogue was a scratchy voice saying “Go Now!”

The beginning of the year usually features bad movies that studios are throwing out there with the hopes that one or two will stick, like done spaghetti on a wall, and make some cash. If they expected big things of a movie, it wouldn’t be released in January. Which really makes you wonder why “Elektra” isn’t coming out later in the year, doesn’t it?

If you google, E.V.P. or talking with the dead, you will likely find a lot of more entertaining and creepy things on the internet than you will find in this movie. “White Noise” will probably not make my worst movies of 2005 list (“Son of the Mask” is coming out this year, after all), but it’s not going to rank near the top either.

As I said while walking out of the theater, “P.U.!”

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