Amazon.co.uk Review
Schizoid serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) has been captured at last, but a neurological seizure has rendered him comatose, and FBI agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughan) has no way to determine the location of Stargher's latest and still-living victim. To probe the secrets contained in Stargher's traumatised psyche, the FBI recruits psychologist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez), who has mastered a new technology that allows her to enter the mind of another person. What she finds in Stargher's head is a theatre of the grotesque, which, as envisioned by first-time director Tarsem Singh, is a smorgasbord of the surreal that borrows liberally from the Brothers Quay, Czech animator Jan Svankmajer, Hieronymous Bosch, Salvador Dali and a surplus of other cannibalised sources.
This provides one of the wildest, weirdest visual feasts ever committed to film, and The Cell earns a place among such movie mind-trips as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Altered States, What Dreams May Come and Un Chien Andalou. Is this a good thing? Sure, if all you want is freakazoid eye-candy. If you're looking for emotional depth, substantial plot and artistic coherence, The Cell is sure to disappoint. The pop-psychology pablum of Mark Protosevich's screenplay would be laughable if it weren't given such sombre significance, and Singh's exploitative use of sadomasochistic imagery is repugnant (this movie makes Seven look tame), so you are better off marvelling at the nightmare visions that are realised with astonishing potency. The Cell is too shallow to stay in your head for long, but while it's there, it's one hell of a show.
On the DVD Sounding more like a stand-up comedian than a serious filmmaker in his feature-length commentary, director Tarsem Singh (a veteran of glossy TV commercials and music videos) clearly reveals that dazzling visuals took priority over plot and character in The Cell. This emphasis is echoed throughout the DVD's bonus features, especially in a featurette "tribute" to Singh by primary members of his creative team. While the deleted scenes are interesting, they add nothing to the finished film, so it's easy to see why they were deleted. Detailed examination of the film's special effects offers a first-rate primer on the state of the art of digital imagery. To lend an air of scientific credibility to the film's basic premise, a brain map and "empathy test" are included, inviting viewers to take a multiple-choice quiz to determine their level of empathy and compassion toward other human beings. (The lower your score, presumably, the more you have in common with serial killers.) --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
Amazon.co.uk Review
Schizoid serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) has been captured at last, but a neurological seizure has rendered him comatose, and FBI agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughan) has no way to determine the location of Stargher's latest and still-living victim. To probe the secrets contained in Stargher's traumatised psyche, the FBI recruits psychologist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez), who has mastered a new technology that allows her to enter the mind of another person. What she finds in Stargher's head is a theatre of the grotesque, which, as envisioned by first-time director Tarsem Singh, is a smorgasbord of the surreal that borrows liberally from the Brothers Quay, Czech animator Jan Svankmajer, Hieronymous Bosch, Salvador Dali and a surplus of other cannibalised sources.
This provides one of the wildest, weirdest visual feasts ever committed to film, and The Cell earns a place among such movie mind-trips as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Altered States, What Dreams May Come and Un Chien Andalou. Is this a good thing? Sure, if all you want is freakazoid eye-candy. If you're looking for emotional depth, substantial plot and artistic coherence, The Cell is sure to disappoint. The pop-psychology pablum of Mark Protosevich's screenplay would be laughable if it weren't given such sombre significance, and Singh's exploitative use of sadomasochistic imagery is repugnant (this movie makes Seven look tame), so you are better off marvelling at the nightmare visions that are realised with astonishing potency. The Cell is too shallow to stay in your head for long, but while it's there, it's one hell of a show.
On the DVD Sounding more like a stand-up comedian than a serious filmmaker in his feature-length commentary, director Tarsem Singh (a veteran of glossy TV commercials and music videos) clearly reveals that dazzling visuals took priority over plot and character in The Cell. This emphasis is echoed throughout the DVD's bonus features, especially in a featurette "tribute" to Singh by primary members of his creative team. While the deleted scenes are interesting, they add nothing to the finished film, so it's easy to see why they were deleted. Detailed examination of the film's special effects offers a first-rate primer on the state of the art of digital imagery. To lend an air of scientific credibility to the film's basic premise, a brain map and "empathy test" are included, inviting viewers to take a multiple-choice quiz to determine their level of empathy and compassion toward other human beings. (The lower your score, presumably, the more you have in common with serial killers.) --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
Customer Reviews:
LOST FOR WORDS.......2007-10-26
This was one of those films you watch, switch the TV off and then wonder where the last two hours went.
I'm having trouble doing a review because this story was so dream/reality, that i wasn't sure what the hell was going on. The effects were good and if i understood the story, were probably essential.
Not one for the repeat showing for me. SORRY
Too schizophrenic to be honest.......2007-08-30
To bring the mind of a serial killer, in that instance an extreme case of schizophrenia, to the front of the screen or the investigation to be able to save the last kidnapped victim planned to die by some mechanism that will drown her eventually, that's the ambition of the film. But does it make a real thriller? They use a technique that will eventually exist for the large public in the near future. The mind of a doctor or qualified medical personnel gets into the mind of the patient, in this case a criminal, in order to communicate with him and get the information the police needs to get on the track. Risky because with such schizophrenic people, there is only one world and it is theirs. You cannot enter their world without being an intruder and at once they react in making you captive, and you may eventually get catatonic with the patient's mind taking over your own mind. At first by making you their prisoner and later, with a reversal, which is for the medical personnel to let the patient's mind get into his or her mind, eventually to become the tool to satisfy the patient's deepest desire which is to dissolve in the outside world they cannot reach at all, except through your mind and then you are making them die virtually but it can mean real death since the mind controls all mechanisms of the body. It may also for a patient who is not totally enslaved by his death instinct mean a liberation, the desire being to be loved, to love, to be acknowledged. In our case here the attempt enables the medical personnel to satisfy the criminal's self-death instinct, and at the same time to enable the profiler to get into the criminal's mind and see the detail that will make it possible to trace the equipment and then the location of this equipment used to imprison, drown and eventually turn into a sex object the girl who is in the cage. The main interest is the visual exploration of this mental world in which this serial killer is living. The film insists on the triggering of this schizophrenia by traumas coming from his infancy, and particularly his father who, it is shown, brutalized him when a child, but also submitted him to a baptism by total immersion that will give him the model for his crimes as well as the model for his mental death. It is also implied that sexuality was associated to this brutalizing, hence molesting. Yet the question is asked and two points of view are expressed, one considering there is no escape and another considering that one can always manage to escape. This approach is doubled with the question whether it is genetic or accidental. Difficult to say but the film seems to satisfy itself with the idea it is a deep trauma, a deep trouble and that it is so deep that there is only one mental exit and it is mental death, in other words mental suicide. Do we have the right, as the medical personnel does, to help him get mentally killed, in other words to get there and kill him in his own mind? Ethically I doubt it but criminally there is no proof of any violence because it is all mental, virtual. And yet? And what can be the consequences on the medical personnel in time if that person takes pleasure in and becomes enslaved to this power over the minds of other people, to the point of killing them, morbidly satisfying their desire or turning themselves into doctor, police, judge, jury and executioner? No one has that right.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Brilliant, one of my favourites.......2007-08-16
Contrary to magazine, newspaper and TV reviews, and the quotes printed all over the DVD packaging, this is not all about Jenniffer Lopez dressing sexy and pouting.
Visionary director Tarsem Singh, who cut his teeth in TV commercials, has put together an absolute masterpiece, in my opinion. It's one of those few multi-genre movies that really hits the mark in all areas; Sci-fi, fantasy, and horriffic thriller are all woven beautifully together, to create a story that is gripping, captivating, and convincing.
J-Lo plays the role of Catherine, a psycho-therapist who's job is to literally enter the mind, and fantasy world, of children with serious mental illness, to try and help improve their quality of life.
When the FBI, on the hunt for an illusive serial killer, find their suspect in a coma, Catherine is asked to enter the dark, twisted fantasy world in his mind to try to determine where his next victim is being held in captivity.
Singh's unique visionary approach to setting, costume and general atmosphere make the story moving and frightening, but equally enticing - obscure and unnerving as some scenes are, they are also sometimes quite stunning, and it really makes it worth putting up with the chill-factor because you just want to see what happens next.
This is the only film I have seen that has honestly come close to feeling like a real-life dream/nightmare feels. It's got all the elements of twisted reality that you get from a strange dream, with out being too far-out and ridiculous.
"The Cell" is not a hugely gory or violent film, like "Saw" or "Hostel"....it's intelligent, and uses psychological trickery to keep you right on the edge of your seat. It would appeal both to people who like a good, suspenseful thriller, as well as anyone interested in dark, artistic fantasy as seen in films such as "Pan's Labrynth".
Careful use of CGI is combined with quality direction, a solid storyline and script, and is brilliantly executed by it's leading cast. Don't dismiss it just because it's J-Lo - you'd be really missing out...
Visual Spectacle of Dark.......2007-05-17
I can't help but notice how many reviews rant at how bad the acting was. I don't understand how you could pay attention to the acting of a film so wierd and in your face.
To be honest, I can't remember the quality of acting, let alone any quotes from the film, only dark disturbing images that I can't help but stare in awe at, but that's why I love it. Those involved in the production must have some hell of an imagination to imagine let alone create such settings and visuals.
Unfortunately, that's all it was: a series of disturbing and wierd images that feed the imagination.
Over-hyped?.......2006-04-28
After hearing that this film was a visual feast, featured a complex plot and was genuinely disturbing, I just had to see it.
I was quite disappointed. Although it certainly does contain some beautiful scenes, as well as some sick ones, other parts just made me laugh. I'm not sure why this film is described as 'disturbing'. Jennifer Lopez's acting creaked like one of those mutant dolls. And Vince Vaughan has never been a favourite of mine. Perhaps with different casting this could have been an extremely different film - even achieving classic status, but as it is, I simply didn't engage with it emotionally.
However I'd still recommend it for the art direction alone - the purple cloak that billows out from the walls when Catherine visits the serial killer's mind, as well as the poor horse meeting its maker - they're two scenes that I won't forget in a hurry. I understand some of the sets and costumes were inspired by artwork or other films and even music videos.
See it (I'd rent rather than buy), but don't expect anything life-changing.
Amazon.co.uk Review
Schizoid serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) has been captured at last, but a neurological seizure has rendered him comatose, and FBI agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughan) has no way to determine the location of Stargher's latest and still-living victim. To probe the secrets contained in Stargher's traumatised psyche, the FBI recruits psychologist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez), who has mastered a new technology that allows her to enter the mind of another person. What she finds in Stargher's head is a theatre of the grotesque, which, as envisioned by first-time director Tarsem Singh, is a smorgasbord of the surreal that borrows liberally from the Brothers Quay, Czech animator Jan Svankmajer, Hieronymous Bosch, Salvador Dali and a surplus of other cannibalised sources.
This provides one of the wildest, weirdest visual feasts ever committed to film, and The Cell earns a place among such movie mind-trips as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Altered States, What Dreams May Come and Un Chien Andalou. Is this a good thing? Sure, if all you want is freakazoid eye-candy. If you're looking for emotional depth, substantial plot and artistic coherence, The Cell is sure to disappoint. The pop-psychology pablum of Mark Protosevich's screenplay would be laughable if it weren't given such sombre significance, and Singh's exploitative use of sadomasochistic imagery is repugnant (this movie makes Seven look tame), so you are better off marvelling at the nightmare visions that are realised with astonishing potency. The Cell is too shallow to stay in your head for long, but while it's there, it's one hell of a show.
On the DVD Sounding more like a stand-up comedian than a serious filmmaker in his feature-length commentary, director Tarsem Singh (a veteran of glossy TV commercials and music videos) clearly reveals that dazzling visuals took priority over plot and character in The Cell. This emphasis is echoed throughout the DVD's bonus features, especially in a featurette "tribute" to Singh by primary members of his creative team. While the deleted scenes are interesting, they add nothing to the finished film, so it's easy to see why they were deleted. Detailed examination of the film's special effects offers a first-rate primer on the state of the art of digital imagery. To lend an air of scientific credibility to the film's basic premise, a brain map and "empathy test" are included, inviting viewers to take a multiple-choice quiz to determine their level of empathy and compassion toward other human beings. (The lower your score, presumably, the more you have in common with serial killers.) --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
Customer Reviews:
LOST FOR WORDS.......2007-10-26
This was one of those films you watch, switch the TV off and then wonder where the last two hours went.
I'm having trouble doing a review because this story was so dream/reality, that i wasn't sure what the hell was going on. The effects were good and if i understood the story, were probably essential.
Not one for the repeat showing for me. SORRY
Too schizophrenic to be honest.......2007-08-30
To bring the mind of a serial killer, in that instance an extreme case of schizophrenia, to the front of the screen or the investigation to be able to save the last kidnapped victim planned to die by some mechanism that will drown her eventually, that's the ambition of the film. But does it make a real thriller? They use a technique that will eventually exist for the large public in the near future. The mind of a doctor or qualified medical personnel gets into the mind of the patient, in this case a criminal, in order to communicate with him and get the information the police needs to get on the track. Risky because with such schizophrenic people, there is only one world and it is theirs. You cannot enter their world without being an intruder and at once they react in making you captive, and you may eventually get catatonic with the patient's mind taking over your own mind. At first by making you their prisoner and later, with a reversal, which is for the medical personnel to let the patient's mind get into his or her mind, eventually to become the tool to satisfy the patient's deepest desire which is to dissolve in the outside world they cannot reach at all, except through your mind and then you are making them die virtually but it can mean real death since the mind controls all mechanisms of the body. It may also for a patient who is not totally enslaved by his death instinct mean a liberation, the desire being to be loved, to love, to be acknowledged. In our case here the attempt enables the medical personnel to satisfy the criminal's self-death instinct, and at the same time to enable the profiler to get into the criminal's mind and see the detail that will make it possible to trace the equipment and then the location of this equipment used to imprison, drown and eventually turn into a sex object the girl who is in the cage. The main interest is the visual exploration of this mental world in which this serial killer is living. The film insists on the triggering of this schizophrenia by traumas coming from his infancy, and particularly his father who, it is shown, brutalized him when a child, but also submitted him to a baptism by total immersion that will give him the model for his crimes as well as the model for his mental death. It is also implied that sexuality was associated to this brutalizing, hence molesting. Yet the question is asked and two points of view are expressed, one considering there is no escape and another considering that one can always manage to escape. This approach is doubled with the question whether it is genetic or accidental. Difficult to say but the film seems to satisfy itself with the idea it is a deep trauma, a deep trouble and that it is so deep that there is only one mental exit and it is mental death, in other words mental suicide. Do we have the right, as the medical personnel does, to help him get mentally killed, in other words to get there and kill him in his own mind? Ethically I doubt it but criminally there is no proof of any violence because it is all mental, virtual. And yet? And what can be the consequences on the medical personnel in time if that person takes pleasure in and becomes enslaved to this power over the minds of other people, to the point of killing them, morbidly satisfying their desire or turning themselves into doctor, police, judge, jury and executioner? No one has that right.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Brilliant, one of my favourites.......2007-08-16
Contrary to magazine, newspaper and TV reviews, and the quotes printed all over the DVD packaging, this is not all about Jenniffer Lopez dressing sexy and pouting.
Visionary director Tarsem Singh, who cut his teeth in TV commercials, has put together an absolute masterpiece, in my opinion. It's one of those few multi-genre movies that really hits the mark in all areas; Sci-fi, fantasy, and horriffic thriller are all woven beautifully together, to create a story that is gripping, captivating, and convincing.
J-Lo plays the role of Catherine, a psycho-therapist who's job is to literally enter the mind, and fantasy world, of children with serious mental illness, to try and help improve their quality of life.
When the FBI, on the hunt for an illusive serial killer, find their suspect in a coma, Catherine is asked to enter the dark, twisted fantasy world in his mind to try to determine where his next victim is being held in captivity.
Singh's unique visionary approach to setting, costume and general atmosphere make the story moving and frightening, but equally enticing - obscure and unnerving as some scenes are, they are also sometimes quite stunning, and it really makes it worth putting up with the chill-factor because you just want to see what happens next.
This is the only film I have seen that has honestly come close to feeling like a real-life dream/nightmare feels. It's got all the elements of twisted reality that you get from a strange dream, with out being too far-out and ridiculous.
"The Cell" is not a hugely gory or violent film, like "Saw" or "Hostel"....it's intelligent, and uses psychological trickery to keep you right on the edge of your seat. It would appeal both to people who like a good, suspenseful thriller, as well as anyone interested in dark, artistic fantasy as seen in films such as "Pan's Labrynth".
Careful use of CGI is combined with quality direction, a solid storyline and script, and is brilliantly executed by it's leading cast. Don't dismiss it just because it's J-Lo - you'd be really missing out...
Visual Spectacle of Dark.......2007-05-17
I can't help but notice how many reviews rant at how bad the acting was. I don't understand how you could pay attention to the acting of a film so wierd and in your face.
To be honest, I can't remember the quality of acting, let alone any quotes from the film, only dark disturbing images that I can't help but stare in awe at, but that's why I love it. Those involved in the production must have some hell of an imagination to imagine let alone create such settings and visuals.
Unfortunately, that's all it was: a series of disturbing and wierd images that feed the imagination.
Over-hyped?.......2006-04-28
After hearing that this film was a visual feast, featured a complex plot and was genuinely disturbing, I just had to see it.
I was quite disappointed. Although it certainly does contain some beautiful scenes, as well as some sick ones, other parts just made me laugh. I'm not sure why this film is described as 'disturbing'. Jennifer Lopez's acting creaked like one of those mutant dolls. And Vince Vaughan has never been a favourite of mine. Perhaps with different casting this could have been an extremely different film - even achieving classic status, but as it is, I simply didn't engage with it emotionally.
However I'd still recommend it for the art direction alone - the purple cloak that billows out from the walls when Catherine visits the serial killer's mind, as well as the poor horse meeting its maker - they're two scenes that I won't forget in a hurry. I understand some of the sets and costumes were inspired by artwork or other films and even music videos.
See it (I'd rent rather than buy), but don't expect anything life-changing.
Amazon.co.uk Review
Schizoid serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) has been captured at last, but a neurological seizure has rendered him comatose, and FBI agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughan) has no way to determine the location of Stargher's latest and still-living victim. To probe the secrets contained in Stargher's traumatised psyche, the FBI recruits psychologist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez), who has mastered a new technology that allows her to enter the mind of another person. What she finds in Stargher's head is a theatre of the grotesque, which, as envisioned by first-time director Tarsem Singh, is a smorgasbord of the surreal that borrows liberally from the Brothers Quay, Czech animator Jan Svankmajer, Hieronymous Bosch, Salvador Dali and a surplus of other cannibalised sources.
This provides one of the wildest, weirdest visual feasts ever committed to film, and The Cell earns a place among such movie mind-trips as 2001: A Space Odyssey, Altered States, What Dreams May Come and Un Chien Andalou. Is this a good thing? Sure, if all you want is freakazoid eye-candy. If you're looking for emotional depth, substantial plot and artistic coherence, The Cell is sure to disappoint. The pop-psychology pablum of Mark Protosevich's screenplay would be laughable if it weren't given such sombre significance, and Singh's exploitative use of sadomasochistic imagery is repugnant (this movie makes Seven look tame), so you are better off marvelling at the nightmare visions that are realised with astonishing potency. The Cell is too shallow to stay in your head for long, but while it's there, it's one hell of a show.
On the DVD Sounding more like a stand-up comedian than a serious filmmaker in his feature-length commentary, director Tarsem Singh (a veteran of glossy TV commercials and music videos) clearly reveals that dazzling visuals took priority over plot and character in The Cell. This emphasis is echoed throughout the DVD's bonus features, especially in a featurette "tribute" to Singh by primary members of his creative team. While the deleted scenes are interesting, they add nothing to the finished film, so it's easy to see why they were deleted. Detailed examination of the film's special effects offers a first-rate primer on the state of the art of digital imagery. To lend an air of scientific credibility to the film's basic premise, a brain map and "empathy test" are included, inviting viewers to take a multiple-choice quiz to determine their level of empathy and compassion toward other human beings. (The lower your score, presumably, the more you have in common with serial killers.) --Jeff Shannon, Amazon.com
Customer Reviews:
LOST FOR WORDS.......2007-10-26
This was one of those films you watch, switch the TV off and then wonder where the last two hours went.
I'm having trouble doing a review because this story was so dream/reality, that i wasn't sure what the hell was going on. The effects were good and if i understood the story, were probably essential.
Not one for the repeat showing for me. SORRY
Too schizophrenic to be honest.......2007-08-30
To bring the mind of a serial killer, in that instance an extreme case of schizophrenia, to the front of the screen or the investigation to be able to save the last kidnapped victim planned to die by some mechanism that will drown her eventually, that's the ambition of the film. But does it make a real thriller? They use a technique that will eventually exist for the large public in the near future. The mind of a doctor or qualified medical personnel gets into the mind of the patient, in this case a criminal, in order to communicate with him and get the information the police needs to get on the track. Risky because with such schizophrenic people, there is only one world and it is theirs. You cannot enter their world without being an intruder and at once they react in making you captive, and you may eventually get catatonic with the patient's mind taking over your own mind. At first by making you their prisoner and later, with a reversal, which is for the medical personnel to let the patient's mind get into his or her mind, eventually to become the tool to satisfy the patient's deepest desire which is to dissolve in the outside world they cannot reach at all, except through your mind and then you are making them die virtually but it can mean real death since the mind controls all mechanisms of the body. It may also for a patient who is not totally enslaved by his death instinct mean a liberation, the desire being to be loved, to love, to be acknowledged. In our case here the attempt enables the medical personnel to satisfy the criminal's self-death instinct, and at the same time to enable the profiler to get into the criminal's mind and see the detail that will make it possible to trace the equipment and then the location of this equipment used to imprison, drown and eventually turn into a sex object the girl who is in the cage. The main interest is the visual exploration of this mental world in which this serial killer is living. The film insists on the triggering of this schizophrenia by traumas coming from his infancy, and particularly his father who, it is shown, brutalized him when a child, but also submitted him to a baptism by total immersion that will give him the model for his crimes as well as the model for his mental death. It is also implied that sexuality was associated to this brutalizing, hence molesting. Yet the question is asked and two points of view are expressed, one considering there is no escape and another considering that one can always manage to escape. This approach is doubled with the question whether it is genetic or accidental. Difficult to say but the film seems to satisfy itself with the idea it is a deep trauma, a deep trouble and that it is so deep that there is only one mental exit and it is mental death, in other words mental suicide. Do we have the right, as the medical personnel does, to help him get mentally killed, in other words to get there and kill him in his own mind? Ethically I doubt it but criminally there is no proof of any violence because it is all mental, virtual. And yet? And what can be the consequences on the medical personnel in time if that person takes pleasure in and becomes enslaved to this power over the minds of other people, to the point of killing them, morbidly satisfying their desire or turning themselves into doctor, police, judge, jury and executioner? No one has that right.
Dr Jacques COULARDEAU, University Paris Dauphine, University Paris 1 Pantheon Sorbonne & University Versailles Saint Quentin en Yvelines
Brilliant, one of my favourites.......2007-08-16
Contrary to magazine, newspaper and TV reviews, and the quotes printed all over the DVD packaging, this is not all about Jenniffer Lopez dressing sexy and pouting.
Visionary director Tarsem Singh, who cut his teeth in TV commercials, has put together an absolute masterpiece, in my opinion. It's one of those few multi-genre movies that really hits the mark in all areas; Sci-fi, fantasy, and horriffic thriller are all woven beautifully together, to create a story that is gripping, captivating, and convincing.
J-Lo plays the role of Catherine, a psycho-therapist who's job is to literally enter the mind, and fantasy world, of children with serious mental illness, to try and help improve their quality of life.
When the FBI, on the hunt for an illusive serial killer, find their suspect in a coma, Catherine is asked to enter the dark, twisted fantasy world in his mind to try to determine where his next victim is being held in captivity.
Singh's unique visionary approach to setting, costume and general atmosphere make the story moving and frightening, but equally enticing - obscure and unnerving as some scenes are, they are also sometimes quite stunning, and it really makes it worth putting up with the chill-factor because you just want to see what happens next.
This is the only film I have seen that has honestly come close to feeling like a real-life dream/nightmare feels. It's got all the elements of twisted reality that you get from a strange dream, with out being too far-out and ridiculous.
"The Cell" is not a hugely gory or violent film, like "Saw" or "Hostel"....it's intelligent, and uses psychological trickery to keep you right on the edge of your seat. It would appeal both to people who like a good, suspenseful thriller, as well as anyone interested in dark, artistic fantasy as seen in films such as "Pan's Labrynth".
Careful use of CGI is combined with quality direction, a solid storyline and script, and is brilliantly executed by it's leading cast. Don't dismiss it just because it's J-Lo - you'd be really missing out...
Visual Spectacle of Dark.......2007-05-17
I can't help but notice how many reviews rant at how bad the acting was. I don't understand how you could pay attention to the acting of a film so wierd and in your face.
To be honest, I can't remember the quality of acting, let alone any quotes from the film, only dark disturbing images that I can't help but stare in awe at, but that's why I love it. Those involved in the production must have some hell of an imagination to imagine let alone create such settings and visuals.
Unfortunately, that's all it was: a series of disturbing and wierd images that feed the imagination.
Over-hyped?.......2006-04-28
After hearing that this film was a visual feast, featured a complex plot and was genuinely disturbing, I just had to see it.
I was quite disappointed. Although it certainly does contain some beautiful scenes, as well as some sick ones, other parts just made me laugh. I'm not sure why this film is described as 'disturbing'. Jennifer Lopez's acting creaked like one of those mutant dolls. And Vince Vaughan has never been a favourite of mine. Perhaps with different casting this could have been an extremely different film - even achieving classic status, but as it is, I simply didn't engage with it emotionally.
However I'd still recommend it for the art direction alone - the purple cloak that billows out from the walls when Catherine visits the serial killer's mind, as well as the poor horse meeting its maker - they're two scenes that I won't forget in a hurry. I understand some of the sets and costumes were inspired by artwork or other films and even music videos.
See it (I'd rent rather than buy), but don't expect anything life-changing.
UK DVD:
- The Company Of Wolves [1984]
- The Devil's Rejects - Special Edition [2005]
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- The Lost Boys (2 Disc Special Edition) [1987]
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UK DVD List
UK DVD
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