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The
Cell review by Terry Wickham
When a serial killer lapses into a coma before his last victim can be found, FBI Agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) turns to experimental treatment to try and reach into the killer's mind to find the missing young woman. Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) accepts the dangerous job of entering the killer Carl Stargher's (Vincent D'Onofrio) mind, but the question becomes will she survive his dark and twisted mind before the victim perishes. The most noticeable thing about The Cell is how color explodes across the screen. When the film starts, it's like a color volcano erupts, sending out plums of the richest colors the camera lens can capture. For the most part this high style works, as much of the film's running time is spent while in the mind of different people. The suspense generated by the film is not as strong and the film's structure will remind you of the movie Seven. Thus, The Cell is somewhat predictable and easy to figure out. Music video director Tarsem Singh has a nice touch with the cinematic color palate, but he still needs work on developing onscreen tension, improving the performances from the actors and being less predictable. If he is serious enough to work on these weaknesses, he very well could put together a film that could really make a mark. Music composer Howard Shore gives us another one of his suspense scores that always sound uniquely his. There may be no other composer that I've heard that sounds similar. Vincent D'Onofrio is stringing together a collection of oddball characters. This one will go up there as one of the strangest ones. Vince Vaughn seems kind of like he's sleepwalking through the role, but it still works. Jennifer Lopez looks great on the screen and Tarsem gets her into some pretty creative costumes. There's something missing from her performance to put it into the grade A level of acting. I believe that it's Tarsem's inexperience with actors. Compare this performance to her work in Steven Soderbergh's Out Of Sight and you'll see a difference. In the documentary "Style As Substance" Tarsem says he was attracted to do The Cell because "Visually it was a completely open canvas." A collection of Tarsem's collaborators has been gathered to speak about how he likes to take things to the extreme. Make-up artist Michelle Burke says, "He likes to shock." Visual Effects Vignettes is another documentary where Kevin Haug (Visual Effects Supervisor), Michelle Burke (Make-up Designer) and Richard "Dr." Baily (Digital Animation) go into great detail about all the main special-fx scenes. In each major special-fx scene, we get the choice of watching from three camera angles; we can watch behind the scenes of how each scene was shot, storyboards and or interviews with the visual effects leaders. I particularly liked watching the interviews because you are able to see the two other angles in rectangular boxes on the side. There are eight deleted scenes, which New Line does an excellent job with the menu by giving us the choice to hear with director commentary or without. The Cell is a flashy movie that will keep your attention while watching it, but you'll soon forget after it's finished. New Line has done their part by making the overall DVD package dazzling.
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