The Cell (2000)

The Cell (2000)

Dir. Tarsem Singh

J-Lo dives into the mind of a very mentally disturbed, comatose serial killer (Vincent D'Onofrio) hoping to convince him to take her seriously now that she's an actress in a real, genuine, honest to grud film! If she fails to reach and reason with him in time, someone dies.

It's aged badly (or maybe that's me?), and is shallower than it pretends to be — step in it and your toes will barely get wet — but the movie has a few memorable moments, most of which come from D'Onofrio, who has an intensely overbearing cinematic presence. Without him it would be little more than a bunch of pretty moving pictures attached to a plot that draws from The Silence of the Lambs (1991) movie.

Visually, it's both bad and good: the CGI is awful, but many of the visual and optical effects are pretty wonderful, with a surreal quality that on occasion seemed inspired by the likes of the Quay Brothers; there's a tiny bit of Lynch, too.

I like how it incorporates elements of both science fiction and fantasy, being never entirely one or the other. Sadly, the police procedural aspect, explored though Agent Novak (Vince Vaughn) doesn't hit its mark often, and the less said about the purposefully reserved but utterly woeful attempts at establishing a burgeoning attraction between him and J-Lo's character the better.

Music is by Howard Shore, which seems like a fairly good fit. Somehow, the individual parts combine to form something memorable that pleases me more than it probably should.

I'll mention The Cell 2 (2009 / Dir. Tim Iacofano ) because it exists. It has No Tarsem, D'Onofrio, J-Lo, or Vaughn. It's a direct to video sequel with nothing to relate it to the first film after the first 60 seconds. It resembles a bad episode of TV series The Dead Zone; it even has the guy who plays Sheriff Walt Bannerman in that series playing... a Sheriff. It has magic self-cleaning cars, a clearly breathing dead woman, and inconsistent camera angles. It sucks.