The Cell Reviewed

ROVIN' AND RAVIN' WITH MIKE

Matrix of the Lambs

The Cell

While Hollywood has offered us few delights this summer, it has offered me an excuse to discuss some basic concepts of film-reviewing. This week, The Cell gives us an opportunity to look at genre films, those films that fit into easily labeled categories—science-fiction, western, horror. There is nothing inherently good or bad about a genre film; some transcend the genre to take their places among the best films of all time. 2001 is not just a sci-fi flick, any more than Shane is just a western or Frankenstein just a horror film. But, for each of those, there are hundreds of films that instead of defining or defying the characteristics of a category simply, numbingly repeat them.

A recent genre that has soon worn out its welcome is the psychotic killer genre, going downhill ever since it got started with Silence of the Lambs. That film was blessed with a complex and logical script, great directing, and one of the most memorable performances ever filmed—the eerie evocation of Hannibal Lector by Anthony Hopkins.

Even as I write this, I feel the dread and repulsion I felt when I saw the film and remember the nightmares I had after seeing it. A few months after it came out, I read an article that said that psychotherapists all over the country were reporting that their clients were spending a great deal of time in their sessions discussing this film, which plunged to some real depths, reaching something mythical and dark, and creating in its images of Hopkins as Lector some troubling new icons of the twentieth century.

The bad news is that The Cell has none of the powerful writing, directing, and acting of Lambs but all the worst excesses on which serial killer movies depend—the mechanistic psycho-babble, the kinky fetishes, the thin line between suspense and soft-core sadomasochistic porn. But, it brings nothing new in depths of character, motivation or interest.

It does have a gimmick, and a gimmick is about all that is has. That gimmick is that there is some sort of process by which social worker Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez, who proves how beautiful but untalented she is) can enter into the mind of someone in a coma. O.K., we can grant a film its gimmick, if the film does something with it, as The Matrix did.

A serial killer Carl Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio) has just kidnapped a new victim and has put her into a room which will slowly begin to fill with water. The FBI apprehends him, and he conveniently lapses into a coma. The FBI agents know from his videotapes about the room, but they have no idea where it is.

So, Catherine enters his mind to find out where the room is. Is that room the cell of the title? No one ever explains that, or much of anything else. Director Tarsem Singh and his designers replace story or character with visual appeal, very strong visual appea, but the film turns out to be nothing but eye candy—and candy is neither nutritious nor satisfying. The outrageous images and costumes, no matter how much they distract us from the emptiness of the film, just do not sustain it.

Since I have several times complained that some films are more like theme park rides, I’ve noticed that one film which I have not seen (Hollow Man”) is advertised as a “scary ride.” Well, this one morphs into a theme park ride, but of a rather boring kind. The effects and costumes are impressive, but you have to ask yourself, will you be satisfied with smoke and mirrors?

The script is full of holes, the performers seem to be acting by the numbers, and the director seems not to have grown beyond his music video background for this, his first feature film. There is much less here than meets the eye.

The film is very derivative, and the title of my review, which recalls the two films upon which The Cell seems most to rely, The Matrix and Silence of the Lambs, shows the weakness of this film. In The Matrix, similarly breathtaking imagery was used to create a believable world and to advance the plot, not to cover up the lack of believability and sustained plot. In The Silence of the Lambs, the gruesome murders were a consistent part of the characterization, not a sensationalistic attempt at easy shocks. A film must do more than look good. It must give us some meaning, some sense of purpose in watching it.

With all the desert scenes in this film, our customary dry feet will be no problem, but for noble thoughts—well, for noble thoughts, let me commend to you two fine workers of the actor’s craft whom we have recently lost, Sir Alec Guinness and Loretta Young. Perhaps the most fitting tribute I can offer them is to suggest that you consult the Internet Movie Database to review what they accomplished and to realize what we have lost.