No matter how hard she tries to be dramatic and sympathetic, or how hard I try to get past how much I hate her, I just can NOT take Jennifer Lopez seriously! Maybe it's the accent, maybe it's the lame music she vomits up, but whatever the reason, Jennifer Lopez can only be a burden to a movie that I'm reviewing. But, Lopez isn't the only person in this movie. Vince Vaughn is also present, and though I like him usually, I've seen him in much better form as opposed to The Cell. However, Vincent D'onofrio (two Vinces in one flick! It's like the '80s nightmare of the Corey movies all over again! NO!!!!!!) does an excellent job in his portrayal of the demented villain who also gets some pity out of us by the end, despite the fact he's a twisted psycho! Anyway, let's get this sideshow on the road, shall we?
Catherine Deane (Lopez) is a child psychologist who is using a radical form of dream therapy (involving bizarre suits that look like they drew heavy influence from the armor of Bram Stoker's Dracula) in an attempt to bring a young boy out of a coma. But, it looks like she's failing. Hey, what do you expect from Jennifer Lopez? Elsewhere, some oddball named Carl Stargher (our bad guy D'onofrio) plays around with his recent victim's corpse, making her up to look like a China Doll. Then, the weirdo suspends himself from his ceiling and starts jerking off all over the chick's body while watching homemade surveillance videos of her drowning in Stargher's titular deathtrap: the Cell.
The Cell is a small glass room where the victim is given food, water, and a toilet. After a while, the Cell's automated sprinkler system begins to fill the oversized fish tank until the occupant drowns. One of my least favorite ways to die, yet one of my favorite ways to torture people, heh heh.
Anyway, the cops find the girl's corpse the next day at a railyard. Now, with his playmate dead, Carl needs to get some fresh meat, so he grabs another babe from a parking garage. Not to worry though, because Detective Pete Novak (Vince Vaughn) is on the case! With Novak's leadership, the fuzz finds the madman's home... and the bastard too, naked and laying face down in his kitchen, inconveniently comatose due to a schizophrenic condition. Why inconvenient? Though it helps the good guys in capturing the fiend, it also prevents them from interrogating the guy and finding out where his latest victim is being held! This is made worse because, remember, the Cell's sprinkler is automated. So, whether Stargher's dead or alive, the girl's still in for a fatal swim if they don't find her by nightfall! This is where Cathy and her Freddy Krueger machine come in.
They hope that Cathy will be able to go into the nutcase's head, get the location of the Cell's hiding spot, and get the cops out there in time to prevent one more senseless death. Oh, and to add to the already impossible task, the whole reason Carl's in the coma is because of a schizophrenic disease. This means that, since Carl's got multiple personality shit going on, even if Cathy does manage to make a connection Carl could change his mind REAL quick and cause some serious "complications" in the blink of an eye. When she gets in there, Carl's mindscape turns out to be a work of surreal art! If you stuck Salvador Dali or H.R. Giger in there, the two would probably question the limits of their own skewed outlooks on reality. Then they'd probably go insane and starting eating their feet and try to build full scale models of the Eiffle Tower out of ground squirrel meat...
Uhm, well, while in Carl's little world, Cathy helps us uncover the childhood abuse that made Carl into the man he is today, just before he manages to take over her free will! In desperation, Novak himself goes into the dreamworld to bring Cathy back to her senses. He succeeds, almost at the cost of his own internal organs, then figures out a lead that will get him to the missing girl, leaving Cathy to her work. While Carl seeks out the girl, Cathy tries something new and brings Carl into her mind, where she's in control. Here, she finds out that Mr. Stargher killed the girls as a form of mercy killing, in an effort to keep them from having to deal with men the likes of Carl's asshole father. Sure enough, Carl's evil side follows his innocent child side into Cathy's mind, where Cath proceeds to get some revenge and lay a serious beatdown on the monster's sorry ass. Elsewhere, Novak and his men find the girl, bust open her would-be aquatic grave, and save the day. As for Cathy, the only way to finish the bad guy off is to drown the boy side of Carl in her own kind of mercy killing. Wait, we're supposed to feel sorry for a psychotic killer?! Gah, enough confusion for me, this review's over!
Quick rap up, the dream sequences were very cool and definitely the highlight of the movie, though, since they were the only real good part in general, there sure could've been a lot more screen time for 'em. You already know my stand on the acting, so let's skip to the soundtrack. The music was excellent, composed by mister Howard Shore, who brought us the sounds for the classic psychological cannibal mind game The Silence of the Lambs. As for the story, this is where the movie falters most of all... well, aside from that damn Lopez. I get the feeling the writers came up with this right after they watched Nightmare On Elm Street and Se7en back-to-back, mixed with some really cheap drugs to add to the visual effects. Hell, gimme copies of Lord of Illusions and Happy Birthday To Me and slip a few green gels into a half gallon of Jolt and I can write you up a sequel by the weekend! No, wait, I'm being foolish. Make it Hellraiser instead of Lord of Illusions and you'll have 400 pages by tomorrow!
The Moral of the Story: Never trust a guy with big iron rings piercing his back meat.
DVD X-tras: Not bad x-tras wise, but very stylish in the menu design! Then again, any less from a big budget 90 minute music video and I would've been shocked. Contents: audio commentary from director Tarsem Singh and another track from the production team; all music track; deleted scenes and extended cuts, complete with director commentary; extensive cast & crew filmos; "Interactivities" such as an apathy test and interactive map of the human brain (for all you Psychology students and wanna-be Hannibal Lecters out there... like myself); preview for the PC game "Home World" (why, I'll never know); theatrical trailer and international teaser; and finally, a behind-the-scenes section.
H.O.P.E.L.E.S.S. Rating: 
- It'll be fun to throw shit at the screen when J-Blow goes into her pathetic little "I'm so totally concerned about matters that I'm dying inside" schpiel, and there's wide open opportunity to crack many a Freud joke, so long as you and your amigos don't mind being in the same room together when touchy subjects like child abuse and guys hanging by hooks masturbating on dead chicks come up...
If You Liked This Flick, Check Out: Lord of Illusions or
Se7en
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