The Cell (2000)

The Cell
Reviewed by Christian Pyle
Directed by Tarsem Singh
Written by Mark Protosevich
Starring Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, and Vincent D'Onofrio
Grade: D

It's probably inevitable that the popular virtual reality genre ("The Matrix," "eXistenZ") would collide with the even more popular serial-killer genre ("Kiss the Girls," "Se7en"). The result should have been more interesting than "The Cell."

As the movie opens, therapist Catharine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) treats a catatonic boy (Colton James) by entering his mind through some sort of virtual reality technique that's never fully explained. After months of therapy sessions in a surreal desert, Catharine has no success to report.

Meanwhile, killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) has claimed another victim. His particular hobby is to kidnap young women, keep them in a glass cell overnight, and drown them. He takes the corpse and soaks it in bleach, then suspends himself over the body and jerks off while watching a video tape of the drowning. Although Carl's been doing this for awhile, he's recently become sloppy, and FBI Agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) is closing in fast. Not fast enough, though, to keep Carl from sticking another woman (Tara Subkoff) in the cell or to catch him before he suffers a schizophrenic attack that leaves him in a coma. From the videos in Carl's house, Peter can see that the drowning cell is automated and will fill with water forty hours after the abduction. To save the kidnapped girl, Peter has to find the cell before the end of the day, and comatose Carl's not talking. So off they go to Catharine in the hope that she can go inside Carl's mind and find out where the cell is in time.

The focus of "The Cell" in on the ornate interior of Carl's mind, but the universe director Tarsem Singh creates seems more an exercise in computer-generated spectacle than an exploration of the psychotic personality. For the most part, it's style without substance. In his own mind, Carl is a decadent emperor in flowing robes, Ming the Merciless, as well as a frightened boy (Jake Thomas) abused by his father. All in all, the mind of a psycho killer turns out to be a strangely dull place, and I kept wishing I could fast-forward to the next development.

Singh is best known for directing music videos, particularly REM's "Losing My Religion," and "The Cell" seems very much like a really long, really slow MTV video with the sound deleted. Singer Lopez seems to think she's in a video as well; she devotes more time to posing in elaborate costumes than she does to acting.

The premise had great promise. The computer-generated world within Carl's mind could have been a bizarre, surreal universe governed by insanity and symbolism rather than logic. The first room Catharine enters in Carl's head shows this promise. She finds a horse standing in center of the room; suddenly, sheets of sharp-edged glass fall into the horse, dividing it into segments. The panes of glass separate, pulling apart the pieces of the still-living horse. This scene is twisted, disturbing, and thought-provoking, because the psychological importance of the horse and its fate is left to the viewer to ponder.

Another element that should have been developed is the effect on Catharine of merging with the mind of a psychopath. Their minds begin to bleed together at one point in the movie, and this should have provided an opportunity to discover the dark corners of Catharine's own psyche. Like Sidney Lumet's "The Offence" or Michael Mann's "Manhunter," "The Cell" could have explored how the madness of the killer brings out a repressed darkness in the investigator. However, Catharine's character is hardly developed at all, and Lopez has no depth to offer the role.

Bottom Line: Don't get trapped in this one.

© 2000 Christian L. Pyle

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