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The Cell
Click Box
cover art above, to purchase this DVD
The Film :
As so many films desperately try to be the next Silence of the
Lambs, few of them have any clue as to what made that film so
gripping (clue #1: it had a good story, because it began as a great book).
Some just think that all it takes to make a Lambs-clone is a
sexually-kinky psychotic, add a few gory scenes (which, of course, have to
be oh-so-much gorier than Lambs), and you got a blockbuster
on your hands. The Cell is the latest such clone, and if its
violence wasn't so sickening, it could have been a visually
stunning thriller.
The story involves serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent
D'Onofrio), who is relentlessly pursued by an FBI agent (Vince Vaughn). He
captures the psycho, though the mystery is still afoot; his most recent
potential victim has yet to be found, and they have no clue of where to
begin looking. In comes Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez), whose
attempts to enter the minds of comatose patients has been quite
successful. She is asked to enter the nightmare-filled mind of the serial
killer himself, and uncover the location of his last intended victim,
before it's too late.
The leaps of faith in this script are as unrealistic as any
dream-world. Before you ask why the missing, kidnapped victim is still at risk of dying
--even after the serial killer was captured-- he trapped her in a timed
drowning cage (?), that will kill her in X number of hours ("X"
being the maximum time frame plausible in a standard police-chase film).
Before you ask why they don't just beat the truth out of Carl, and make
him confess where he put her; he slips into a coma upon capture,
conveniently making entering his dreams the only alternative. Before you ask why Catherine
finds a young boy in the mind of the adult psychotic; this is his younger
self, in a bizarre subplot that seems to imply that all Killer Carl needs
to be sympathetic, is for Catherine to find his "inner child."
Oh, brother!
While most summer films attempt to make audiences go "ooh"
and "aah" over computer FX, The Cell wants you to go
totally wowsers via artful make-up, set decoration, and costume design.
Sometimes these "visions" are inspired, and sometimes they just
look like a TV commercial. When Lopez walks a desert in a sexy white
dress, you are almost disappointed when a luxury sedan doesn't pop in from
the background, or a perfume bottle doesn't fade into focus. (imagine the
slogan: "Nightmare...By Calvin Klein!"). Personally, I
prefer the colorful ambiance of 1980's Flash Gordon, whose costumes and set
design were far more brilliant and inspired. It's equally nice to be a
multimedia entertainment critic, and be reminded of Gil Bruvel's striking,
colorful CGI world within Of Light and Darkness. In
that interactive adventure, Bruvel succeeded in the near-impossible task
of making Judgment Day itself seem colorful and alluring, yet macabre and foreboding
at the same time. It also succeeded in doing this, without resorting to
cheap gore-flick gimmicks. If only The Cell had such vision.
This is merely alluding to The Cell's most glaring flaw:
such cheap, inappropriate, shock-value menageries of gore, that the words
"hideous," "nauseating," and "repugnant" are
not enough to describe them. Body piercings hang said
psychopath in the air, almost tearing apart his own flesh. In another
scene, there's a horse sliced into pieces. In another, there's an
overdone, inappropriate, grotesquely stupid disembowelment. Sorry; a scene
where a man gets his intestines slowly ripped out is not
thrilling, gripping, or even, to be honest, very scary. Movie audiences
don't get scared by nauseating images; just sickened.
I'm actually quite surprised how few reviews for this film --both
professional and amateur-- don't even mention these scenes at all, when
saying why they hated the film, or feel so defensive when liking it. Don't beat around
the bush, kids. True, some other scenes are vibrant, colorful and picturesque,
making it hard to explain why you still couldn't stomach the film.
However, the question of whether you enjoyed the film still
stands. This is
not unlike a gourmet restaurant, where the food offered is fine filet
mignon, yet to be allowed to eat it, you're forced to see a stage
show of...a disembowelment! The result is a slew of thumbs-down reviews
for the cafe. "Gee, what about the delicious, flawless filet mignon?" asks the
liberal food critic. Replies a more honest critic : "What about it?...I threw it up in the bathroom, thank
you!"
The film was directed by Tarsem Singh, who is better known for music
videos and commercials. Memories surface of David Fincher, who was handed
Alien-3 just after doing little more than a few Madonna Music Videos. While
this same director eventually filmed Seven and Fight
Club, his
inexperience at the time of Alien 3 led to a total catastrophe; both for him, and a
formerly flawless sci-fi thriller series. The same can be said here for
Tarsem; he needs more experience than mere 30 second advertisements. I have no doubt Tarsem will
make a decent film someday. This isn't it.
The DVD :
Of course, the biggest draw for any DVD watcher, is the director's commentary.
This explains a lot of...well, why it was done the way it
was. One of the more bizarre explanations of a scene, though, would have
to be Tarsem's excuse for the gore-filled sequences. He said that he felt
critics wouldn't think those scenes were as grotesque, because they were
part of a dream sequence, and "not real." An intriguing concept,
except for one thing; unless a film is a documentary, none of a
film is real. A review is based on how an "unreal" movie
succeeds in being entertaining. That said; seeing an onscreen disembowelment
is not entertaining!
Added materials are merely so-so. If you
want to hear the great, one-named Tarsem explain himself, scene by scene,
you get your chance. However, as amusing as that may be, that's about it
for worthwhile additions. Sure, there are deleted scenes, though most are
just extended versions of the same scene, while others aren't worth the
trouble to see them in the first place. In one such deleted scene, for
example, you get a scrolling shot of Carl's bedroom, with pictures on the
walls implying that his horrific visions were because he had the exact same pictures on his
bedroom wall. Fancy that.
Click
Box cover, at left, to buy this DVD.
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