Puls

When I first read Cell many years ago, I instantly thought it could be transferred to an amazing movie. (And funnily enough, even cast the same actors in my eyes for both Clay and Tom.)

However, the final product for the big screen was such a let down.. Though the scenes they took from the book were fairly accurate, they cut out at least 40% of the content. (Most of which is integral to the story telling and explaining what has actually happened.. The Raggedy Man / Red Hoodie Guy being one major oversight.)

I feel like if you hadn't read the book to begin with, you'll probably find yourself getting lost too easily.. There was a severe lack of pacing simply jumping from scene to scene and some changes which in my opinion were for the worst.

Overall I did still enjoy the movie, has a fairly unique concept and some very disturbing imagery, but had I have not read the book prior I don't think it'd be getting anywhere near 6/10 from me.

SUMMARY: GO READ THE BOOK INSTEAD, AN ABSOLUTELY AMAZING READ.

Considering I went into Cell with abysmally low expectations, it turned out to be not too bad. Not that this necessarily means that it's all good, but there are some good things I can say about this. I'm pretty sure, from what I've heard about the book (at best it's liked but not loved, sort of a middle-tier King work, not one of his triumphs but not a failure either, something fun he could knock off in a month or two as one of those 'hey this is happening in the real world, I'll use it for one of my spooktacular stories' things) that this actually makes for an accurate assessment. It's a standard-issue zombie-ish story of people being infected and going bugf*** insane, only this time King (who also gets a screen writing credit) adds a kind of bird-pulse-hive-mind thing that only gets explained enough to move the plot along.

Maybe in the book it was explained more or better; here, it seems like some weird and borderline lame (or just lame) device to keep us sort of on our toes, like, 'oh, hey, this time they're *not* vomiting blood on one another or eating brains, and any gunshot can kill them, not just the head, gotcha, thanks.' But more lame than that is the generic story thing of 'well, my son and ex are somewhere, and I'm gonna go find them' when, naturally, it's not going to be pretty or something he likes when he finds out (that he being Cusack, who is doing the best he can with fairly weak-tea material). Meanwhile, Samuel L Jackson does his best Ken Foree (intentional or not) from Dawn of the Dead, and is a reason to see the movie - even in the midst of some mediocre writing or plotting, or moments that can make one groan, he's there to work and it's not something to be embarrassed about on his resume.

As for the action, it's... fair. I guess I may be tired of seeing action shot with the shutter off (that's when the camera has this function that makes it go, oh, nevermind, you know it when you see it), and I think Tod Williams is a competent director of action but not one who can make things as thrilling as it should be. By the time you see one character go to a door slowly - not in this, I mean in any other movie you've ever seen in your lives - you've seen them all, and this has a lot of that. And while at one time I felt apprehensive about Eli Roth being the director, as he was attached for a period of time after the book first came out (his movies tend to be Dumb with a capital, sometimes double, D), now I'd be curious as to what he might have changed or made more visceral or f***ed up.

Cell goes through the motions, has some decent atmosphere, and a couple of those strange touches that I'm sure come from that primordial cavern that is King's sub(or regular)consciousness - such as the whole aspect of how these beings screech and them come together (which is a fascinating sight to me), or Stacy Keach having the whole football stadium of infected asleep listening to the... is that the yodeling from that Christopher Lee mashup from LOTR online(?) But there's not enough of it to make it stand out; while I haven't seen enough of it to make a full comparison, my gut tells me this is, to the lay-person, Walking Dead lite, with some good actors doing their best and only rising to meet the absolute minimum required.

... okay, maybe the ending is a little terrible, but my rating still stands.

This variation of the zombie apocalypse borrows from films like 28 Weeks Later or Kaufman's Invasion of the Body Snatchers. That is to say, it relies more on psychological tension than on graphic violence (but still contains some graphic violence.) The first act is pretty good, intense, sharp, adopting a fast pace that dispenses us of the genre's clichés. That won't last as it will turn into standard fare. Finally, in the 3rd act, the writer completely drops the ball and doesn't even bother ending his story properly. He just takes the easiest way out and deserves some boos for it.

Bad storytelling is enough to make a movie bad and a rating low. Here however, I balance it with the impressive beginning and the excellent visuals. Also worth mentioning is Samuel L. Jackson who, for the first time in 20 years, portrays a human being instead of his perpetual annoying caricature.

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.