Review of The Cell (2000) by Eric H — 16 Jul 2015

Tarsem Singh has basically made his career on films that emphasize style over substance. Prior to this, I only saw a couple of his more recent efforts: MIRROR MIRROR, which I liked well enough, and IMMORTALS, which felt like Zack Snyder-lite and was a bit boring.

I wasn't really expecting anything deep when I got this, and my expectations were met. Is it great? No, not really, but the potent cocktail of Tarsem's visual style combined with some (pop) psychological drama was enough to keep my interest throughout.

The premise is that there is this technology which allows someone to enter the mind of another person. Jennifer Lopez plays a social worker who enters the mind of comatose patients to see if she can bring them back to consciousness.

Vince Vaughn plays an FBI agent/profiler who is after a serial killer (Vincent D'Onofrio) who likes to do some pretty twisted things to his victims. Fortunately, he's captured, but in a comatose state, therefore he has to team up with Jennifer Lopez to enter the killer's mind and try to find the location of the latest woman before she dies.

The film actually takes its time getting started, establishing (however lightly), the principal characters. However, once the plot is set in motion it rarely stops. Anyone looking for extensive character development and logical plot might as well give up because you won't find it here.

What you will find is an intriguing debut film from a distinctive visual stylist. If I had to describe the fantasy sequences, it would be like Jodorowsky and Del Toro mixed together in the style of a Marilyn Manson or Nine Inch Nails music video.

Put simply, those particular sequences were very dreamlike and surreal, with echo-chamber dialogue, jerky cuts/editing, and semi-heavy color saturation. By far, this was the most interesting part of the film.

However, the performances weren't bad by any means. Jennifer Lopez acquits herself nicely, and Vince Vaughn shows some range. Vincent D'Onofrio as the villain doesn't get as much dialogue, but a lot comes through in the physical aspect of his performance.

On a side note, his hairdo in this film made him look like Philip Seymour Hoffman in BOOGIE NIGHTS. Of additional interest is the score by Howard Shore. Given that this is a thriller, there is, to some degree, a reliance on bombastic music cues that match the action but are still a little over-the-top.

The parts I liked best were the quieter moments that featured native Indian instruments (Tarsem Singh is from India). The weakest aspect of the film is undoubtedly the script, which has an overly simple story, thin characters, logical errors, and clichés.

There's also a last-act choice that little motivation other than that it was referenced early on, so they might as well have followed through with it. For what it's worth I was never bored because Tarsem conjured up plenty of cool imagery to take my mind off of the relatively unimportant plot.

And for style over substance, THE CELL isn't half bad.