Puls

Over the many year's movies have existed there's been a large number of questions raised by movies with answers non-forthcoming. These are questions that have been at the forefront of many a coffee date discussion, movie club forum or family dinner. Questions like who exactly is/was the "thing" (The Thing), is it a dream or reality (Inception), what was in the briefcase (Pulp Fiction) and now with this long completed and finally just released Stephen King adaptation we can add why exactly was John Cusack's in danger graphic novelist Clay Riddell so keen to pop on his beanie in the midst of a do or die cell phone lead apocalypse?

It's a question we may sadly never have answered and probably the only thing that will stick with you once Tod William's (where has the director who made The Door in the Floor gone?) film reaches its credit sequence, as this adaptation of one of King's least regarded books is one of those films just waiting to join the likes of The Wicker Man remake as a film that's just so bizarre and random it's hard to know who did and why they decided this was a film the public wanted.

In all its random glory however, if I was being totally honest, after all the negative press and jokes being made at its expense, Cell is not nearly as bad as it could've been when watched with the right mindset.

A seriously daft idea that induces a large amount of unintended laughter, Cell has its fair share of "what the" moments and it's a little sad seeing the likes of John Cusack (although he seems to have sold his movie soul some time ago now) and Samuel L. Jackson act through some insanely bizarre situations; I truly can't even begin to explain a scene involving a field of sleeping cell phone zombies, the film actually has some decent scenes and ideas that make this a B grade experience you can sit back and laugh at or with and an experience best watched with a room full of friends all up to witness a film that should never have made it to the cold light of day.

Through the history of movies we've been treated to King adaptation gold, from experiences like The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, The Shining and The Mist, Cell is certainly not one of those and is certainly not a film of cinematic virtue but it's an experience that deserves to be seen as even if you hate every minute of this oddball ride its likely you've never seen anything like it before and if you solve the beanie mystery, please let me know.

2 troll lol lol's out of 5

Watching it right now on Rai2, dubbed in Italian.

At first I thought it was some kinda B movie despite the big names (maybe Samuel L. Jackson and John Cusack have taken the path of Nicolas Cage?) and the level of production. Then, to my surprise, I discovered this was a Stephen King adaptation, and not the brainchild of some wannabe King.

Something's extremely off. Hard to put a finger on it at first look, but the director seems to have forgotten to set a particular mood and pace for the material in hand. This is so rushed it fails to be taken seriously. Even less credible an outcome than Zombie parodies.

And to top it: I believe it requires some kind of special talent to have Samuel L. Jackson as a lead in a movie and still not even manage to make the outcome even moderately entertaining.

I may not even make it till the end.

I am not a purist when it comes to adaptations, and I didn't hate this, at the same time I didn't love it.

It almost would've worked better as a miniseries.

Cell is a quasi zombie story by Stephen King, circa 2005, it's basically the thing Kirkman ripped off while developing The Walking Dead. The novel is a lumbering, melancholy at and times humorous take on the zombie genre and the mass market emergence of mobile communication devices.

The filmmakers do their damnedest at placing it into a modern timeframe, but it's almost too well adapted. While I'm not against changes and remakes, they almost would've been better off just sticking to the material and going all in.

Either way, I don't hate, it's just that the noncommittal to either the source material or the new take left the movie in a sort of state of limbo.

Overall, I'm glad I saw the film, I just wish it was willing to pick a side and just run with it.

Okay, people are going to tell you that this movie is dumb and corny and frustrating. Don't listen to them. Admittedly, they're absolutely right, but don't listen to them anyway.

This movie is the closest we're going to get to a sequel to Maximum Overdrive from Stephen King, and it's actually pretty close. Instead of a bunch of disparate stragglers surviving in a world where humanity is overrun by machines being controlled by an alien force, we get a bunch of disparate stragglers surviving in a world where humanity is overrun by people being controlled by an alien force. So it also dips into Walking Dead knock-off territory, where everyone who uses their phone basically becomes a fast zombie; but on the plus side, this still has a lot of King vibes in it.

Do you ever think about horror movies after seeing them and realize, if you view the film from the evil supernatural side of things, its motives make no sense? Like, "if the demon spirit wanted to possess the little girl before anyone could figure out what was going on and stop it, why did it spend the first 45 minutes terrorizing the babysitter and attracting needless attention to itself?" Well, this movie is like that: if you think about whatever mysterious intelligence is behind what's happening, what it decides to make the people it controls do doesn't really add up. But this movie goes the extra step, where you don't even have to do the thought experiment and shift perspectives to see that this movie regularly makes no sense.

It's like King wrote down his dream and these people filmed it. And that's kinda cool if you're prepared to view this film like Kurosawa's Dreams or Fulci's The Beyond. If broken and contradictory logic is going to bother you, you're going to be kicking a hole in your monitor. And for all the fun King brings to his work, there's also his usual flaws. In this case: hokey characters. DJ Liquid? The "you're cute" lady? The King Of the Internet? But it's also kind of charming in a "King's our lovable grandpa who writes these crazy stories" kinda way, and this film gets past them easily enough with plenty of fast paced action and shocking violence.

Other pros: Sam Jackson and John Cusack give their roles more weight than the script deserves. You actually care if they survive and worry for them in a way most lesser films don't manage. Stacy Keach shows up for a bit of fun, too. The story's also ambitious, playing with big ideas and isn't afraid to get pretty dark and cynical, which is nice to see in a more mainstream horror film with a name cast.

Other cons: Most of the down to Earth effects are fine (zombies, gore), but it tries to depict some very big things that clearly just aren't in its budget. There's a scene right in the very beginning where an airplane explodes, which they really should've left off-camera, because it really looks super fake. And some shots in the film's climax look like a cartoon.

Look, this is a heavy-handed movie for technophobes. Everyone who uses their cellphone turns into a mindless zombie. Characters walk through a brand new movie theater with a giant sign advertising "now with digital Projection," and then immediately into a drive-in movie lot. Keach gives a big dramatic reading to the line, "you can't stop progress, but you're never too old to fight it" before firing a bow and arrow. There's nothing subtle for miles around, and I'm sure we all know someone, probably older, who'll applaud the scene where people throw their smart phones into a fire, thinking finally someone else understands that change and technology are evil.

But for the rest of us, it's a pretty amusing, entertaining time so long as you're willing to not question anything it throws at you. Fast paced, loads of thrills, our protagonists walk around with armfuls of weapons and ammo; and yet the film takes itself seriously enough that it never starts to feel like a bad joke. Silly sure, but earnest. All it needed was a rockin' AC/DC soundtrack.

First... I did not know anything about this awesome, and I can't say that enough, awesome book becoming a movie. I have had to read this book at least 10 times over the last few years and some of my most favorite life quotes came from this book. So when I saw this as a movie and John as the main role I knew it was going to be amazing. I mean if I could cast the main character myself it would be John.

BUT... Well, if the director had made a movie out of the book, it would have been amazing. If the movie had any of the most notable and required pieces of the plot it would have been amazing. If the director had even read anything to do with the book, even the dust jacket, it would have been amazing. But he didn't, he didn't, he didn't.

SO... The movie sucked. I don't like to use that type of "language" when reviewing anything, but there is no other choices here. Everything about the movie was wrong and I gave it a lot of room, a lot of space to make errors and not flow the same. Because ultimately you want to be surprised by the movie. You ultimately want the director to make it his own just a little bit, put his spin on something and have it shine even more. And I did, I watched the movie to the very end. Checked behind the credits and everything. And now I wish I would have gone on for the rest of my life without knowing this movie existed.

IF... Now one might think by my review that had you not read the book, you might have liked it but sadly that is not true. This is not only the worst adaptation of a book ever, but it is also just poorly put together, scripted, acted, and there is no redeemable quality anywhere.

Such as... The sound effects were horrible, the video tried to be dark and creepy, but it was just bland. There was very little action or scare factor other than some BOO moments from the "zombies type people." If you didn't see something coming from a mile away it is because it made no sense. The ending was a little baffling on how horrible it was. I mean I am actually trying to think of one thing. Just one that I can say and would take this movie from a 1 star to at least a 1.5 star. But I can't. I can't think of a single thing that I can look back on and say that was cool/nice/awesome/not terrible.

Lastly... So I will leave you with this. I am actually praying that I reach you before you watched this movie. I am hoping one of your not nice friends didn't play a prank on you and made you pay for this movie. It is my desire that this review has reached you before you have wasted one single heartbeat within the vicinity of this horrible, horrible film mistake. And I thank you for reading my review and I am sorry to those that I did not reach in time.

Joshua Kyte