Hey folks, Harry here... And this time we're talking about THE CELL. You know, here's a film that's earliest reviews sounded like this: "I just saw the new summer thriller The Cell. Here’s my helpful advice; get a good, solid two by four, put the movie in a corner, and beat it until it stops squealing. Then beat it some more."--John Robie... and then there was "The movie lacks depth. It lacks a story. People have been comparing it Seven, and Silence of The Lambs, which is probably the easiest and most benign thing to say about this movie."--Gregor Samsa.... Then... as time went on, we heard from TheJuice who said, "I read a quote by Vince Vaughn (I think? don't stone me if it was someone else) that basically said, "This movie is going to piss off a lot of people". Luckily I do agree with him on that point; every person who pays $7.50 to see this unofficial sequel to "What Dreams May Come" is gonna be pissed off, that they were ripped off." ALLllll right... and the following review is at the very best... Luke Warm. Now here's the thing. I don't have an agenda against this film... hell... look up there at the ad banner, I believe they even bought ad space on the site... But it seems that everywhere else I go online there seems to be uniform high praise for THE CELL. Even if you go to Ebert's tv show website you'll hear him and his co-host decree the film as being one of the best of the year and as a 'Masterwork'. But these sorts of reviews have just not been arriving here at AICN. So note... while we seem to be running negative reviews there seem to be people out there that swing in the complete other direction for this film. I'll be seeing it this Friday at the first screening I can. There doesn't seem to be any advance screenings here in Austin. Is THE CELL just empty eye-candy? Is it all style and no substance? Or is it an alleged 'masterwork'? Well, soon... we'll see.
I'm a semi-regular reader of your site (I'll admit it...I only get to drop in during slow periods) and have dropped you a line once or thrice on movies I'd seen previewed. But I saw a few "first timers" printed the other week, and it's a slow time, so I'm writing to tell you about THE CELL.
Much like Jenny Lopez claims to have taken the 6 train into Manhattan, I took the 6 train to the movie theater here in Gotham where THE CELL would be screened. I rode the subway, pondering the movie ahead. Would Tarsem deliver the visual buffet I was expecting? Would Jennifer Lopez, who's gotten better with each film, continue her momentum in her first performance since her quite good turn in OUT OF SIGHT? Would the alcohol in my bag be nearly enough chemical alteration to truly enjoy the movie?
The good news. Tarsem does not disappoint visually. The movie is easily the most visually interesting movie I've seen since THE MATRIX (and the prettiest since THE THIN RED LINE...one shot early on in the film of an outdoor baptism was truly breathtaking...). The alternative world scenes are pure cinematic fun...a fantasy world you could only create on film. Tarsem can't even film an airport scene without having some fun with heat distortion. Without the fantastic visuals, the movie would little more than...
Vincent D'Onofrio giving one of his now-typical off-kilter bad guy performances. Vince Vaughn fighting with some truly terrible dialogue...and losing. Jennifer Lopez looking fabulous, and pretty convincing once you get past the fact that her character is supposed to be QUITE intelligent. (Also...why does Lopez's character, in a profession that would seem to pay well, living in a rather tiny house? Does all her money go into her hair and the weed she's seen smoking?) Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Dylan Baker being wasted in colorless roles, and Tara Subkoff acquitting herself quite nicely, in spite of a terribly underwritten role, after giving two rather shallow performances in ALL OVER ME and LAST DAYS OF DISCO.
Most of the blame lies (as it often does) on the script. First off, much like the recent COYOTE UGLY, the plot is only the slow parts between the reason we're really there: scantily glad girls dancing on bars (or in this case, trippy "dream" sequences with Jennifer Lopez in another fabulous getup.) Secondly, the movie never gives us a reason to care. We never meet the girl (Subkoff) that we watch them try and save the whole movie. The audience I saw it with LAUGHED when it was time for her character to get abducted by D'Onofrio. But we don't care about her. We care about Jennifer Lopez, the heroine of the movie, and we don't want to see her risk her life for this girl we barely know. Especially since Jennifer Lopez's character COULD die...and why is her life less important than the other girls? And finally, the exposition is so blatant that, after a long monologue from Vince Vaughn, I heard one moviegoer whisper to another "hello, backstory".
Ultimately, the movie is neither as scary as the trailers would lead you to believe, nor as gruesome as the buzz would lead you to believe. (Though Vinceent D'Onofrio does do one rather cringe-inducing act to Vince Vaughn.) That said, the visual eye candy that is Jennifer Lopez, and the visual eye candy that Tarsem has created with his collaborators, are good enough to make-up for the bad parts. (My companion said he'd have been pissed if he'd paid for it.)
Oh yes...Jennifer Lopez's Booty does not get screen credit, but is definitely well featured. The crowd favorite seemed to be the-very-unnecessary-to-plot-but-who-cares?-it's-Jenny-Lopez's-booty scene where her character smokes a joint and searches through her fridge in a tight top and panties.
And was it just us, or was that the "Losing My Religion" (also directed by Tarsem) set in a scene between Lopez, D'Onofrio, and a dead girl in a bathtub?
Who knows? Maybe I'll finally get to see my name in print.
Freakzilla Greens
