When you watch a thriller, the last thing you want to know is who the villain is. Unfortunately, there are stories that are not good at hiding it and they make it evident from the moment they suddenly introduce the character in the storyline. Final Frequency sins big time on this matter but the rest of the plot buries it with other issues.

Small and unusual tremors have been occurring frequently in Los Angeles, and this piqued the curiosity of a PhD student. Although her purpose was never to investigate further than what her curiosity exposed, she accidentally gets into a mess that is slowly eliminating the extras around her. Because of this, she becomes a person of interest to several agents who may or may not be what they claim to profess. After miraculously finding the evidence, she needs to comprehend the mess she go into, everything seems to indicate a group of scientists have gone rogue and are trying to build a weapon out of Nikola Tesla’s ideas.

Final Frequency has the audacity to revolver its plot around Nikola Tesla’s missing notes, but it doesn’t stop there. In addition to including an element that is more purpose than motive, it also adds a mystery that rarely manages to stay interesting due to a lack of focus on its own timeline and character development. There are some moments that could have been reworked to create more suspense instead of a big parody that alludes to the sci-fi genre mixed with thriller that translates into comedy— this affects the outcome since you can find out in the first 20 minutes who’s behind everything. It is a sad waste of time to see how the main character is used as filler, which are several occasions, where she goes to look for evidence in rooms previously looted by the antagonist.

Half of the cast lacks a certain charisma while working the dialogue, while the rest prove to have experience on the stage— you’ll recognize several faces from popular TV classics— and their chemistry is not enough to level everyone as a team. The characters are developed with pre-made profiles that only work around a simple plot, and nothing else. No wonder the film never dares to go beyond on translating Tesla’s work because it doesn’t understand the source material.

Final Frequency tries to create a sci-fi thriller with elements you might see in any Nickelodeon youth film between 2000 and 2006— remember Clockstoppers? With a structured character to save the day, but no ability to find clues as they all stick out in its wake, this could be classified as an option to see on a Sunday afternoon, but leave time to see something else after it ends because it might leave a void.

2 OUT OF 10 LIGHTBULBS