The Cell

The last time I reviewed a film helmed by a music video director, I was very angry at what I'd seen (`Mystery Men'), but Tarsem Singh spares us the fish-eye lenses and commercial overindulgences and decides to concentrate on presenting an astonishing visual and audible journey into the mind of a serial killer in `The Cell'.

Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) kills women by drowning them in glass cells, all the while videotaping the event. Afterwards, he disfigures the bodies to resemble dolls and then tosses the finished `products' off highways into ditches and streams. Nice guy. He also likes to suspend himself on chains attached to hooks inserted directly into his back. Lovely.

Meanwhile, FBI agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) is hot on the killer's trail, and although Carl's started to get sloppy, he's just kidnapped another girl and she has 40 hours before her cell fills with water. Carl is soon apprehended, but only because he enters into a schizophrenic seizure and falls into a coma on his kitchen floor. A coma? But how are they going to find out where the last victim is? Oh, if only they could TRAVEL INSIDE HIS MIND. Hey, what a coincidence! Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) is a child psychologist involved in an experimental project that allows her to TRAVEL INSIDE THE MIND of coma victims.

And so begins a strange array of visuals and sounds, blended together so unusually that you honestly feel like you're experiencing a dream… a not so pleasant dream. Not only is Carl's mind slightly twisted, it's violent, disturbingly sexual, and very graphic. But, it's also like a train wreck; you can't help but look. Oddly enough, Mr. Singh clearly had the resources to make his special effects scream out at you with bright color and absurd lavishness, but he chose instead to simplify, placing the terror in the scale and content of the visuals. I can't even use an example. All I can say is think about a dream you've had that you couldn't describe to someone, and that's what watching this movie is like. The photography is so stunning that it virtually eliminates the need for dialogue (only about half the film has discourse), and coupled with the horrifically spooky and scathing soundtrack, the film literally takes on a life of its own.

My only objection is that when all is said and done, the only character we really understand is the serial killer. Several clues about the other characters' pasts led me to believe that their lives would come into play and that their own memories would be tested and confronted. To me, this would have taken this story to yet another psychological level, but perhaps it would have been too much for viewers.

Despite this shortcoming, `The Cell' stills provides a myriad of images that will make you want to watch a lot of cute cartoons before turning in for the night. Still, I don't know what was more disturbing: the movie, or the parents in the next row over who brought their two small kids to watch it.

Probably the most underrated serial killer movie of all, past and to come, times. Never seen anything like that. Not only the visual, by the way astonishing, but also the concept. If you are a serious movie lover, specially this genra, it is a must to see.

The last film that provided a vivid and disturbing look at what insanity is probably like was In Dreams. In that movie, you didn't see insanity, you were THERE. Now The Cell comes along with an updated and much more disturbing portrayal of the inside of the mind of a psychotic killer. The opening scene takes you into the seemingly innocent mind of a comatose little boy, and the things that Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) sees are first fascinating and then terrifying. The things that she later sees in the mind of Vincent Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) are amazingly imaginative and fascinating, most of this stuff has never been seen in film before.

The story of The Cell is not exactly something that is really groundbreaking. In fact, it is basically the same as the story in The Silence of the Lambs. You have a killer in custody and these people have to enter his mind to find a female victim who is currently in danger of losing her life. The only real difference between the foundation of the plots is that in The Silence of the Lambs, you have to enter the mind of a killer to find a different killer as well as his current victim, while in The Cell, you have to enter the mind of a killer to find his own victim. However, despite the unfortunately weak story, The Cell completely revolutionizes the genre of the psychological thriller. None that have ever been made even come close to it.

Also, the film had good direction and was extremely well acted. Vince Vaughn delivers another of his characteristically excellent performances (he was even good as Norman Bates in the pathetic 1998 re-make of Psycho), and even Jennifer Lopez puts forth the second good effort of her career (the other being the great Out of Sight). Nothing can be said of the cinematography in The Cell to give it sufficient credit, it was imaginative and fascinatingly done and is unparalleled by anything ever seen in cinematic history. The Cell is an incredibly well-made film, and it deserves to be recognized.

Style over substance. But what a style it is. "The Cell" is the internal version of most serial killer movies. Unfortunately, the story hardly supports the visuals.

Psychotherapist Catherine Deane (J-Lo) goes into her patients' dreams via artificial means to discover and help them over come their phobias and obsessions. A new patient whose fallen into a coma, is brought to her attention by the FBI. He's a serial killer who drowns his female victims then poses their bodies in grotesque scenarios like mannequins. Deane must enter the killer's mind and navigate through his sick fantasies in order to find and save his latest victim.

Director Tarsem Singh has incredible visions and set pieces for this production. Each dream sequence is like a nightmare-ish painting in motion, from the landscapes to the costumes.

But the plot suffers from lack of history of its characters. Stargher is the only person with a thorough background and he's the last person you want to care about. Without him, you basically have a movie that moves in the present tense only, which is a shame since the movie is so visually stunning and genuinely scary. Lopez is wasted but she's not that amazing an actress anyway, though she's as gorgeous as ever. And Vince Vaughn? I don't even know why he was chosen. This is not his forte and he overacts to boot. He tried too hard to become his character and it showed. Stick to comedy, Vince! Even so, this movie is so visually frightening, I still watch this movie with the lights on and can never fall asleep right away afterward.

Forget about the plot of this movie. Forget about the fact that it is wonderfully acted by Vince Vaughn and Vincend D'Onofrio. Forget about the fact that it is one of the few movies starring Jennifer Lopez that I can stomach. Although the story may be impossible to believe and much of the dialogue seems contrived, the one and only important thing to remember when contemplating watching this movie is that it contains some of the most amazing and disturbing imagery ever put on film. It is as if Salvador Dali decided to make a crime drama. A must see for anyone seriously interested in cinematography and the use of the film cell as a canvas on which to display true works of visual art. I would have to give this movie a 9/10 for it's amazing visual display.