I was recommended The Cell by one of my friends, and she firmly promised me that Jennifer Lopez's acting ability didn't ruin it one bit. So, I decided to give it a go..
The opening scenes of someone riding through a desert was perhaps the oddest way to start a film about murderers. It certainly wasn't what I had prepared myself for, and the only redeeming feature it seems was the flute music in the background - brilliantly played and composed yet didn't seem to match the visual. Jennifer Lopez is then introduced, wearing some sort of wedding dress which only seemed to add to my confusion about the plot of this film. But, trying to be open minded, I carried on watching and just went with it. This scene ended and we switched to the facility they were using to do this weird 'mind transfer' thing, and at about 8 minutes in, I realised I still had no idea what was going on. Nothing had been explained properly - was this set in the future? How did this machine work? I didn't feel connected with the characters or storyline at all at this point, leaving a slight taste of bewilderment.
We then moved on to the main part of the film - the murderer. We saw a process of how the women were tortured and we saw a body being recovered, and pretty much almost instantly, I forgot about Jennifer Lopez. The film seems to have taken a CSI-type feel to it, and switched genre completely. Although from reading reviews and watching the trailer I kind of knew the story, I was still completely confused about what was going on, as we went from airy, wedding-dress-wearing, desert woman to four cops sitting around a table talking about a murder. It really made absolutely no sense.
The best part of this film was Vince Vaughn, and he was definitely the only person I could really connect to. He had a consistent character and we found out about his background thus enabling us to establish him as a person rather than just another actor in the film. Next to J-Lo, his acting ability shone through, overall a good performance from him. When the two random genres collided and we entered into the mind of the killer, you expect it to get good. But rather than why he committed the murders, the writers obviously just wanted to go for the gruesome factor more than anything else. Yes, we see memories from his past and why he is so messed up, but no we don't see a reason or how he targets his victims. The only way they are able to enter his mind is because he, conveniently, has a poorly explained mental problem which means he can't wake up again. It's no wonder this film only won awards to do with costume, make up, and stunts, which were actually quite good. The one scene where J-Lo is in the murderers mind and falls about 55 feet (a stunt double by the name of Jill, well done Jill!) really stood out as something spectacular.
Although this film has been shoddily put together and seems to just be sci-fi forced together with thriller, Vince Vaughn and the music made this film bearable. I gave it 6 stars out of 10 on iMDB, and there is no way that I'll be watching the sequel. I wouldn't really recommend this but give it a go if you want!
No comments:
Post a Comment