October 9, 2000
Drugs. This guy has done a lot of drugs.
As farfetched as the concept for this film was, somehow it worked. But it goes without saying that the plot was secondary to the cinematography. This was an amazingly beautiful, yet disturbing film to watch. The sets were amazing and the costumes were crazy. The only Oscar this film can look forward to are for costuming and cinematography….It is too obvious though that the director only did music videos before this. I was going to say that it reminded me of the Nine Inch Nails video ‘Closer’ – then I looked on the imdb and sure enough, he DID direct it.
Jennifer Lopez managed to not ruin the film, though she didn’t improve it, that’s for sure. Her empathy was not believable at all, as Vince Vaughn’s was. I was disappointed that they didn’t get into Vaughn’s character’s background more – I was expecting a revelation that he was abused as a child or something. Maybe that was a subplot that was cut…
The Cell reminded me of In Dreams – a lot. All the water imagery and the serial killer thing and the bizarre sets. Am I the only person that sees that?
An enjoyable and intriguing film, but don’t go see it under a hallucinatory influence.
Rating – R
Runtime – 107 minutes
Genre – Eye Candy
Director(s) – Tarsem Singh
Writer(s) – Mark Protosevich
Actor(s) – Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, Vincent D'Onofrio, Jake Weber, Tara Subkoff
BOB Rating – Three BOBs
Favorite Quote – "You can not kill me." - Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio)