The Cell, 2000.
Directed by Tarsem Singh.
Starring Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D’Onofrio, Colton James, Dylan Baker, Jake Weber, and Gerry Becker.
SYNOPSIS:
With the help of an experimental technology that allows people to enter the minds of others, a social worker tries to find out where a serial killer has hidden one of his victims.
There comes a point every few years where the culmination of ideas that have filtered through the collective consciousness of Hollywood congeals into a plot that is so nuts that it just has to work or at least (eventually) find an audience. This happened a lot around the turn of the millennium, where filmmakers looked back over the previous decade and threw everything they had learned into whatever projects they were working on, and most of these movies were usually unashamed knock-offs of ‘90s big-hitters like The Matrix, Terminator 2, The Silence of the Lambs, Se7en or The Lawnmower Man. In the case of The Cell, the word ‘or’ in that last sentence should be an ‘and’.
This is because The Cell – which was marketed at the time with the image of a sultry Jennifer Lopez in a ‘90s-style softcore erotica outfit – has so many themes and ideas going on within its, on paper, simple premise that it never really settles into being one thing or the other. For example, the bulk of the first half of the movie is a police procedural that sees cops Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) and Gordon Ramsey (Jake Weber) on the trail of serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio), a man who likes to drown his victims in a water tank, suspend himself over their dead bodies by use of hooks and wires embedded in his flesh (this was the late ‘90s after all) and make himself happy by watching a video of their demise.
Already, these methods seem overly convoluted – because just skinning his victims like Buffalo Bill or basing his crimes on something biblical like John Doe just wouldn’t have seemed enough, right? – but then we have the sci-fi element, where social worker Catherine Deane (Lopez) is part of a team where her consciousness is able to enter that of other people and she is able to talk to and get information from them, which you can guarantee will revolutionise treatments for coma victims.
Handy, because after kidnapping his latest victim and leaving her in the yet unfilled water tank – because it has to fill slowly on a timer so… it just does, alright? – Stargher conveniently falls into a coma just as Novak and his FBI agents burst into his house, but how will they find out where the kidnapped woman is now? We know, don’t we…
Yes, The Cell is a total mess of too many unoriginal and convoluted ideas that, had this movie been made by Roger Corman in the 1970s, could have been a hoot but the filmmakers behind it take it all far too seriously that it is kind-of hilarious, albeit not in a good way.
You can tell the tone they are going for during the opening scenes, which are beautifully shot vistas of a desert with Jennifer Lopez strolling across sand dunes like she was in a Turkish Delight advert from the 1980s. It all looks gorgeous – especially in 4K UHD, as the browns of the sand contrast superbly with the bright blue sky – but then you find out that this desert landscape is the consciousness of a comatose young boy and Lopez’s character is trying to reach him to coax him out of unconsciousness, and all of a sudden the joy seems to have gone right out of the scene. Follow that up with the standard bureaucratic nonsense about how this technology doesn’t work and the boy’s parents want to stop the treatment, and you really can’t wait for the serial killer stuff to start.
But even that doesn’t seem to excite, as a woefully miscast Vince Vaughn and an unpleasant Vincent D’Onofrio – yes, he is supposed to be, but John Doe and Hannibal Lecter also had charisma – just don’t seem to work in their respective roles. Vincent D’Onofrio feels like he is aping every screen serial killer to that point, and with the then-fashionable character trait of body modification front-and-centre, comes across more as cosplay than actually giving a performance. However, he does look spectacular later on when he is in a demonic form inside his own head.
Ah yes, the inevitable showdown between Catherine Deane and Carl Stargher, with a bit of interference from Peter Novak, is when The Cell goes full-on The Matrix/The Lawnmower Man – a movie from eight years previous, and in terms of technology that may as well be a lifetime ago – and it is all a bit underwhelming and confusing. As previously stated, Vincent D’Onofrio looks amazing as Stargher’s demonic personality – a bit like a budget version of Tim Curry in Legend – and this is also the part of the movie where Jennifer Lopez goes from dowdy social worker to the sexy image that adorned every video rental shop in the year 2000, but don’t get your hopes up for a tense and exciting climax à la Se7en or The Silence of the Lambs because that is the part of those movies that The Cell does not manage to replicate on any serviceable level.
Visually, The Cell looks fantastic, with the aforementioned desert scenes really standing out and the colourful make-up jobs on the cast in the final act giving it a sense of otherworldliness, but the tone is so dour and the writing so convoluted that it isn’t really an enjoyable movie to watch. If, however, you are a fan and wish to add this cult favourite to your boutique collection then there is plenty of supplementary material to entice you further into its complicated consciousness, including alternate aspect ratios – which comes down to personal preference and what TV you have – video essays and interviews, but these are for the hardcore only. For casual viewers, stick with The Matrix, which is a lot sexier and far more thrilling.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Chris Ward
