The Cell (2000)

THE CELL
(New Line)
Starring:  Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D'Onofrio, Marianne
Jean-Baptiste, Jake Weber, Dylan Baker.
Screenplay:  Mark Protosevich.
Producers:  Julio Caro and Eric McLeod.
Director:  Tarsem Singh.
MPAA Rating:  R (violence, gore, nudity, adult themes, sexual situations,
profanity, drug use)
Running Time:  110 minutes.
Reviewed by Scott Renshaw.

Watching THE CELL is akin to watching a demo reel for the film's art directors, makeup artists, production designer and costume designer -- which, I'm sure, it will end up being. Make no mistake about it, THE CELL is the kind of film technical craftspeople lie awake fantasizing about. They get the opportunity to create entirely new worlds, where the only rules are the limits of their imagination and creativity. The result can be the eye-popping stuff of Oscar nominations (and wins), a film people walk away from thinking what all art directors, makeup artists, production designers and costume designers secretly want viewers to walk away thinking: "Boy, that looked incredible."

THE CELL does look incredible, and since it is evident in nearly every frame that its primary purpose for existing is to look incredible, I suppose you'd have to say that it works in its own strange way. If only that look seemed less familiar, or more resonant. The premise finds a team of scientists working on a risky experimental procedure. Psychologist Dr. Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) has been acting as a guinea pig, chemically stimulated to tune into the brainwaves of a catatonic young boy and enter his sub-conscious. The procedure has yielded only the slightest success, but it becomes the best chance for F.B.I. agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) to save a woman's life. Serial killer Carl Randolph Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) has been rendered comatose by a rare form of schizophrenia, leaving his latest victim stranded in an unknown location. If Deane can enter Stargher's mind and find out where the woman is, Novak might be able to save her.

First-time feature director Tarsem Singh (director of music videos like R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion") is clearly going for a SILENCE OF THE LAMBS-meets-SEVEN vibe, a commercially wise decision given the financial success of those films. There are heroes with their own demons to banish, interactions between killer and profiler, a screaming woman to be saved, some stark desert landscapes and some grisly images you'll just want to purge from your brain. The parts are right, but they're not put together in a way that adds up to anything. Both Deane and Novak get 30-second character development moments to explain their motivations, including a provocative hint at Novak's own dark childhood, while most of the film treats them like props to throw into Stargher's messed-up head. Considering the film takes nearly an hour to throw them there -- spending an inordinate amount of time on the police work that locates Stargher, when that's not really the point of the story -- the fuzzy characterizations are eminently noticeable.

Eventually THE CELL does dive into Stargher's messed-up head, and things briefly start looking up. Singh's shots are often effectively disorienting, including one arcing shot that ends with the camera swinging upside down into water. Many of the nightmare concepts (a hideous bit of psycho-torture) and directing tricks with which Singh dresses up his film are utterly unique; nearly as many are stuff out of Intro to Music Video Auteurs' Freaky Surrealist Visuals. There's a bathtub full of blood, flocks of white birds, Lopez in Virgin Mary attire, jangly edits and plenty of pasty-faced women. Eventually, it becomes difficult to take THE CELL seriously, because so much of the imagery feels cribbed from 20 years of MTV. The 1984 Dennis Quaid fantasy DREAMSCAPE at least found some fun in walking through another person's psyche. THE CELL is supposed to be terrifying, but when a serial killer's mindscape resembles an S&M variation on a Robert Palmer video, his power to intimidate can't help but diminish.

The climax of THE CELL actually becomes two parallel climaxes: Novak trying to save Stargher's victim-in-waiting, and Deane trying to save Stargher's inner child from his inner pale-eyed demon lord. The juxtaposition of the two stories allows each protagonist the opportunity to get a big dramatic moment. Unfortunately, they have nothing whatsoever to do with one another, which is yet another example of THE CELL's fundamentally flawed storytelling -- it takes far too long to get into its central concept, then tries to make up for that mistake by lingering there once it's already served its purpose. I didn't necessarily expect THE CELL to be a film that would stand up to much scrutiny. I did expect something that would provide the shock of the new. Singh and his crew don't provide enough that's shockingly new to make up for THE CELL's lapses as a narrative. Boy, THE CELL's visuals looked incredible ... especially nine years ago, when they were in R.E.M.'s "Losing My Religion" video.

     On the Renshaw scale of 0 to 10 cell blocks:  5.

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