The Cell 2

This movie is awful. If you saw The Cell and were thinking 'Wow AWESOME, gimme more of this', then please don't go see this movie.

In the 'first' movie (I'm starting to think that the relation between the two is nothing more than the name and the first two shots of the second one) the dream scape was immersing, creative and beautiful, sometimes in a creepy way. In The Cell 2, the dream scape is just a cheap effect, a few squiggly lines at the edges of the screen. Story-wise, it lacks any continuity. Instead of having to be suspended in the air, hooked up to some extreme high tech system in weird suites, the main character is half awake while in the back of a plane, holding a personal item of someone involved. Somehow, they took that awesome dreamsurfing equipment and made it some bluetooth dongle stuck to her head. Furthermore, The shots look cheap, as do the sets. The tactics used by the police or swat are not remotely realistic, and quite frankly, make them look like a fart of the antagonist could blow them away. Now all of this would not be ultimate game-breaking stuff, but i just saw The Cell 1 only two hours ago and was hoping for some more psychedelic-dreamy-crime-horror-thriller-sexy-chicks(lopez) movie, but instead, I got ' a shot at the big-time '

Not every director has a huge budget, and there's nothing wrong with that, but somehow this director acquired a ' The Cell ' license and then ran out of money. Now there will never be a The Cell 3. Thx Tim Iacofano.

I read some of the other reviews, and at the time I went to see it the votes from other IMDb users were up there (over 5 stars average). I must say I wish I hadn't been exposed to it.

Let's start with the acting. It was so incredibly dry, unemotional, and boring that even if the script was good (which it most definitely was not), it wouldn't have helped. I was not drawn in even a bit by any of the characters in this film, and in a film of this genre you sort of need to be to enjoy it.

Then we have the villain, who was so contrived and boring that it took all of the anxiety and depth away from the film. The so-called "heroes" were an absolute pain to watch as they fumbled over their lines and delivered a performance memorable only for its lack of talent.

The "special effects" were reminiscent of early 90s power rangers episodes, I think that's enough said there.

The actual plot was annoying and underdeveloped. The general idea had some merit to it, but the angle they took with the hero/villain interaction ruined it for me, just too far-fetched for this kind of movie. The direction as well made this feel like a home made film, and not in a good way. It was just scene after scene of amateur shooting. I'm not a film buff by any means, and even I thought it was horrible. They even showed you some "behind the scenes" shots at the end, so make sure you stay tuned through the credits....wow.

You'll notice I gave this film 3 out of 10 stars... that's because the last 10-20 minutes of the film might have warranted 4-5 stars, whereas the first 90% probably 1-2 stars, so I averaged them. Though to be fair I'm not sure if the end was better than the beginning, or if I was just getting excited that it was almost over.

Also of note: I haven't seen the original "The Cell", so no, it's not like I went into this expecting a similar movie to the original, I had no basis for comparison.

Anyway, if you decide to watch this regardless of my warnings above, I'll leave the "I told you so" here for you when you're done. Otherwise, you can thank me later.

The Cusp is a killer who repeatedly kills his victims, then brings them back to life, until they beg to die. Some psychic chick has to go into the killer's mind to find his latest victim before she is killed.

I'm a fanatic for the first film. On a scale of 1 to 10, my excitement was about a 15 when I heard this sequel was being made. When I found out it was going direct-to-video, that excitement plummeted to a 2. Looking back, I realize that even after that drop to a 2, I was way over-excited for this movie. Yes – it's THAT bad.

The plot doesn't sound too terrible. I like the idea of a killer making his victims beg for death, and doing that by actually killing them is interesting. But the delivery of this concept was painfully lame. The victims don't put very much effort into their performances at all. The first girl, who's getting her heart cut out, responds as if it's only a minor inconvenience. Seriously, I picture the director behind the camera saying, "Okay, now act like you're in mild discomfort." I also thought the killer would be using some ritual or something interesting, but instead, he's using legit medical practices. One example is suffocating his victim with a plastic bag, then performing CPR to revive her. It's just not very interesting. I'm not sure if a ritual would be much better, but what we're given is just underwhelming.

There are so many little details about this movie that are just flat-out tacky. First of all, the intro to the movie is a short clip from the first film, during which a narrator says something about how a psychic entered the mind of a killer, and "now ... there is another". This is the only time we hear the narrator's voice. It feels rushed and stupid. (It had me and my friend laughing mere seconds into the movie.) Then, during the end credits, we see aerial shots from a helicopter. Half of the shots have the chopper's shadow in view. (It seems like they spent half of their budget on renting this helicopter so they were milking it for all they could.) Then the credits stop twice to showcase brief behind-the-scenes shots. Both of these shots are boring and offer absolutely nothing interesting. There's no point in their presence what-so-ever. Any class that the picture could have had is flushed down the toilet by dumb little moments like these.

An especially tacky aspect of the script is the use of FBI vs. local cop clichés. Not only is the local cop the hero, while the FBI guy is almost a villain for doing his job, but this movie teaches me that it's okay for a cop to tightly grip an FBI agent's testicles and threaten him in order to get a point across. Apparently he won't get fired, arrested, or sued for sexual harassment. Wow. You learn something new every day.

The only connection this story has with the first movie is A.) the brief intro that simply mentions J-Lo's character, B.) the general concept of entering a killer's mind to save one of his victims, and C). the ethnicity of the main characters. It really seemed that they cast the leading lady in this sequel for her ethnic appearance, rather than acting ability. There was no reason for this. We don't care what ethnicity she is, we just want someone who can act.

The way they depict the mind in this sequel is nowhere near as stylish or visually interesting as it is in the first movie. I feel like I shouldn't rag on this aspect too much, since they were obviously on a very small budget. There is one very small visual that's slightly interesting when you see it in context, but it's delivered with horrible CGI.

There is one area in which this movie genuinely impressed me. I was blown away by this movie's ability to make the most simple moments hilarious through awful editing, camera-work, and performances. There's a part where two FBI agents are chasing after the two main characters. It doesn't sound funny, but the horrendous editing, effortless camera work, and HALF-ASSED JOGGING of the actors makes the scene side- splittingly hilarious. There's also a car-chase scene that is made incredibly funny by the awful camera-work and editing. This is honestly one of those movies that I'd show to film students as an example of what NOT to do.

Overall, the movie has one or two interesting ideas wrapped into the script, but the weak acting, lazy film-making, crappy writing, and tacky moments make this movie funny as hell, and there are no interesting visuals to save it. I find this movie just as entertaining as the first film, but only because it's so hilariously terrible.

Can a movie be not good but still fun to watch? The Cell 2 is the perfect zone out movie to be honest, not a great recommendation, but it also had some so bad it was good scenes (somebody mention the ax in the back scene already, watch for it--it propels the entire thing into cult movie status.) Who is Frank Whalley, I had never heard of him, but then I looked up his page and he has a huge resume - this was the guy who was in "The Freshman"? No friggin' way, time was not kind to him but he did a great job in this movie. I was a little baffled by most of the actors in this, especially the lead actress Tessie Santiago who seems to be in a trance most of the time, is it because she's under the spell of The Cusp killer? I think that was the direction but it just wound up making her dull. Cheesy graphics, and an improbable but exciting helicopter crash scene at the end makes this a pretty hilarious movie, and yes, I mean in a good way, even if they didn't mean it.

Just like the summary, the MacGyver TV show was better. It had a better storyline, plot summary and special effects. For this movie to be have the same name as the first cell, it's quite a cheap knockoff of the original. The premise behind the serial killer was cool, but that was about it. Personally, I'd rather watch livestock hump. Thank goodness this was a DVD rental. If we had paid upwards of 20 buck to see it in the theater (40 with popcorn and soda) I would have either demanded my money back or be serviced by an Albanian midget as compensation. Does that sound absurd to you? Yes it does. It is as absurd as this movie remotely being linked to the first one...

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