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Movie Review by: Christopher Chin
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Another victim is stalked,
kidnapped and imprisoned in a glass-walled studio with cameras
recording her every move. In forty hours, she will be dead and
her death captured on film as her cell automatically fills up
with water.
In the city, a mad
schizophrenic suffers a seizure and goes into a coma. The FBI
team lead by Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn), find him sprawled
unconscious on the kitchen floor. In the basement, they find
the horrifying film this killer has made; of the previous
victim, drowning in her 'cell'.
In a frantic race against time
to find the last victim, the FBI locate a child therapist, Dr.
Catharine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) who in the past seven years
has perfected a means of linking her mind with an unconscious
patient in a dream state. With the aid of complex computers
and suspended bodysuits, Dr. Deane is coaxed into visiting the
mind of this psychotic killer in the hope that the location of
his 'Death Chamber' can be found in time.
The Cell has been described by
many as 'Eye Candy' because of the complex and extensive CGI
(Computer Generated Images) employed in many of the scenes
while probing the killer's mind. It is after all, a sick mind
we're probing and the imagery and often 'highly graphic'
sequences can only be achieved using the latest computer
technologies. But 'Eye Candy' it hardly is.
The continuous change in scene
and venue in his unstable dream state seems an excuse for
showcasing Miss Lopez in her various 'eye catching'
costumes, from the gothic to angelic, from tight fitting
numbers to layers of overburdened fabric. For the most part,
she walks around dumbfounded in a stupor, or gives a few sighs
and nods in a role seriously lacking in intelligible dialogue.
This must be one of her worst roles yet. Then again, Miss
Lopez is not exactly looking for a career booster, is she?
Carl Stargher (Vincent
D'Onofrio), the psychotic killer has a short but enigmatic
role. After the short but convincing performance before he
goes into a coma, he appears mostly as a child in his dreams.
Highly disturbed from his upbringing, with a mother who ran
away before he was six, and an abusive father who subjected
him to torture, Carl has his split personality... one as a
child, lost. The other as an all powerful Lord in a Devilish
capacity in control of his own little world. D'Onofrio nails
the character down to a tee, doing the act of a convincing
power hungry devil in search of souls to be his for the
taking. The various costumes and props may have been over the
brim though, as I'm sure he'd have done just as well without
the sugar coating.
But is Vince Vaughn the
detective? No he's not, and as his character pointed out... he
wasn't always with the FBI. In fact, he started his working
life as a lawyer. But after a case in which his client was
acquitted then committed grievous murder, he decided he'd
catch the sinister ones instead of protect them.
The Cell is a trip into the
wildly eccentric mind of a mad man, with incoherent sequences
some remember only too well from nightmares and delirious
states. The scenes move from one to another in quick
succession without warning, the locations are a jumble, the
mood... crazy. It can best be described as...
'Interesting'. I guess one can say the colours are vivid and
varied. But that's all it is. Without the presence of Jennifer
Lopez, voted the world's sexiest woman in an FHM poll, this
movie would surely be on watery ground... not that it did
justice to this actress, songstress' career.
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