The Cell (2000)

Review by Bret Walker

Quite honestly, I was a little skeptical to see another movie made by a music video director. Regardless of the fact that this director was responsible for the video to REM's Losing My Religion, I really didn't feel like sitting through a two hour music video.

Of course, The Cell is so much more than that, and I was pleasantly surprised. He has taken us deep into the recesses of the diseased mind and shown us a landscape designed like a nightmare shared by Salvadore Dali and M. C. Escher. But more on that later.

Catharine Deane is a child psychologist working on a high-tech project that allows her to actually enter the mind of a patient. In this case, that patient is a young boy who has developed a rare schizophrenia which has left him comatose. Elsewhere, Peter Novak is an FBI agent searching for a serial killer who bleaches his victims after they are dead. When the FBI do find this serial killer, they are faced with two disturbing facts: he is also comatose from the same psychosis that paralyzes the boy, and he has taken another victim just before they caught him. The dilemna? The woman he has kidnapped is still alive, but won't be in less than 40 hours. The solution? Bring the comatose killer to Deane so that she can enter his mind and find out where the girl is.

It's not so simple a task. For where her regular patient is a willing participant and allows her to enter, this subject is a demented soul who teeters between the brink of frail goodness and pure evil.

Watching as the dreamscape unfolded was quite a warming experience. It is plain to see from the brilliance of the vision, the enormity of the illusion, that this director's eye is trained to the macabre and surreal. He shows us glimpses of the pageantry capable in the limitless space inside the imagination. He shows us the brightness of the light, the dampness of the dark, and every color of the visible spectrum in between. The imagery and visual effects were stunning, and did not in any way distract from the actual story, which was in and of itself gripping and suspenseful. Rather than distracting, the visual splendor lent more to the story by propping it up with smoke and mirrors. The story by itself is good, but without the dreamscape shots it's just another detective story. Yet The Cell is, as was stated before, so much more than that.

I consider myself fortunate to have seen the film on opening weekend. It is certainly one which I will be purchasing when it comes to video. Those who favor films such as Seven, Silence of the Lambs, and Dreamscape will certainly find solace in this film. It is rare that a story so well written is matched with cinematography and visualization so vivid.

Rating:

Trivia:

Jake Thomas, who stars as the young Carl, debuted as young Hugh Hefner in Hefner: Unauthorized (1999).

Jenifer Lopez was once one of the Fly Girls on In Living Color (1990).

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