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The Cell - New Line Platinum Series

The Cell - New Line Platinum Series

List Price: $14.97
Your Price: $7.99
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 2 stars
Summary: This is a Film...?
Review: Bizzare and ultimately too gruesome a story of a woman (Jennifer Lopez) who uses a new technology to enter a killer's mind to learn the fate of his latest victum. It is morbid and ugly and makes Silence of the Lambs look like a day at the beach.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: This movie was only half cooked.
Review: This movie was only half cooked. I won't just say that it was visually stunning. I think where many people got confused in calling it merely visually entertaining is that the only parts of the movie that were well done (visually and otherwise) were the abstract sequences shot inside the mind. The rest of the movie that doesn't take place inside "the cell" is under developed - the artistic equivalent of filler. Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughn have next to no chemistry together, making parts of the movie extremely hard to watch. Jennifer Lopez is not a serious actress. I am a fan of hers, however in all reality, if you were trapped with only 40 hours to live and you had to choose a female actress to rescue you, I doubt Jennifer Lopez would be the first name to come to mind. I think Gillian Anderson, or a more grounded female personality would have made a world of difference.

The story line of the movie is well enough: A serial killer is trapped inside his own mind- he has fallen into an irreversible coma. Only hours before this happens, he captured another victim. In his particular method of murdering, he traps his victims in a glass chamber and slowly fills it with water, all the while taping them to get their horrified reactions. The drowning process takes about 40 hours. The FBI was hot on the trail to apprehending him - but when they finally track him down he has already gone into a coma. They have no way of finding the victim. He has left virtually no clues and time is running out. Jennifer Lopez, playing a child psychologist who is familiar with entering the minds of her child coma patients, is then approached to enter the killer's mind to try and coax the information out of him.

The concept of the cell was definitely unique. The cell in this movie is a metaphor. The movie in essence refers to the mind as a cell. It tries to demonstrate how people get trapped in their own mind as if a prison- not just serial killers- but people in general. If you look just beneath the surface in the sequences that illustrate the killer's mind, you will find it a wonderful and creative take on the human psyche. While I will agree it is a bit of an MTV music video, I feel the content displayed in these scenes goes well beyond that, although the rest of the movie is mediocre at best.

This movie is definitely not for everyone. It has very strong content. It has very graphic violence and a mature story line. My personal recommendation- fast forward through all of the parts that try to demonstrate a plot other than that of viewing Tarsem Singh's portrayal of the mind!

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: Horrible movie. Cut an apple in half and watch it brown, it will be more entertaining then this movie.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Innovative technique and visuals
Review: The star of this movie, contrary to what the DVD case says, is not Jennifer Lopez or Vincent D'Onofrio. It is director Tarsem Singh and his unique vision of the inner workings of the mind of a madman. The characters and the story just serve as props or an excuse of Mr. Singh to let his creative mind go wild and create on screen a disturbing and eerie world.

The basic premise of the movie is part horror/suspense and part science fiction. A serial killer, well played by Mr. D'Onofrio, stalks women and tortures them in a water chamber before killing them. The actual device that is employed is clever and horrifying at the same time, and the actresses portraying the victims did a great job in showing their despair and terror (as an aside, the first victim that we see on screen does little more than float on water...to actually see her acting, one has to see the deleted scenes).

Ms. Lopez is brought into the scene in her role as a therapist who is involved in an experimental therapy whereby she is connected into a machine and given access to the mind of a patient. Conveniently, Mr. D'Onofrio goes into a coma when he is apprehended, and the location of the last victim in locked in his mind. Of course, the torture device is set on auto-pilot, and the race is on. I'm not revealing anything by saying that no new ground is broken in terms of story. It is all straight forward, connect the dots, even though there are some clever turns.

The substance of the movie lies in the visuals that Mr. Singh has concocted to bring his story to life. He uses lighting techniques, stop motion, Escheresque visuals, and much more to bring the disturbing universe that is the mind of D'Onofrio's character to life. Costume design is also excellent, with outlandish costumes with S/M and fantasy overtones abounding. In this arena Ms. Lopez comes alive, metamorphosing from therapist to avenging angel and savior goddess right before our eyes. The sets are also well done, as well as the careful work that was done to groom a desert landscape into a dream sequence.

Although the themes of death and mania have been explored in many movies before (in my opinion, these themes have been overused in too many movies), the implementation is what sets The Cell apart from the rest.

As for the DVD, the image is crystal clear, with beautiful colors and details. The sound is also excellent. The movie contains the now ubiquitous director's comments, as well as deleted scenes and the like. My one complaint is that Mr. Singh speaks somewhat too fast, and it becomes hard to understand him at times, but listening to the energy and joy in his voice, it is clear that he loves his craft very much.

Rating: 1 stars
Summary: Pure eye candy, no story
Review: I was really excited to see this when it first came out in the theater, but didn't get around to seeing it, so my friends and I rented The Cell the first night it was out to rent. It's a good thing we waited to rent it, because it was a massive disappointment.

The plot is painfully contrived, and so predictible most of us didn't finish watching the movie out of boredom. What little plot their is takes leaps and bounds that defy explanation. The special effects in this movie ARE superb, but that alone isn't going to make a great movie for me.

Even though a girl's life is at stake in the movie, I was so bored, I rather she just up and die so the movie would be over. That's a horrible thing to say, but this movie didn't make me care one ounce about the characters.

If you don't care about a plot at all, go right ahead and watch this! But if you want a shred of a storyline, you'll be sorely disappointed.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Not Worth It
Review: Just because a movie is supposed to be scary, is visually stunning in a few brief moments doesn't mean it's good. Jennifer Lopez didn't help this movie either. When I Watched this movie I was not impressed, this movie is just a weird combination of other movies. It's "Lawnmower man, Nightmare on Elm St, and Silence of the Lambs" thrown in one big blender and set to mush. I didn't think one part of this movie was even remotely interesting or scary. Vince Vaughn acted Lethargic and D'Onfrio just wasn't scary. No good acting + bad overall story= NOT WORTH IT. Sorry but I just report the facts.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Gruesome But Gorgeous
Review: This movie is NOT for the kids, but it IS for adults who like their films intelligently made, engaging, surprising, and stunningly photographed. The dream imagery in this movie is sublime... just as Vincent D'Ofrio as the serial-killer gone into a coma is sublimely horrifying. But he's not a paper villain; one of those boring two-dimensional homocidal meanies seen in too many movies these days. D'Ofrio's killer is a man with a severe and debilitating mental disease... whose frightened inner self (seen as a child throughout the film) wants nothing more than to be released from the madness that keeps him trapped inside the demonic prison of his own head. Meeting him inside his mental prison, Lopez is able to lure him toward her, and help to release him... but only after almost losing herself in the killer's mind in the process. It's a film of contrasts: creepy, wonderful, sick, and masterful! Grab a copy when you can!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Visually impressive, bu Jennifer Lopez destroys it...
Review: It's impressing in terms of the visuals, and I'm sure that the script would stood out more had the star been other than Jennifer Lopez. Simply dull, lacking character. Enough not to own it. I give it a two for the visuals only, really!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Good imagery, but it's a copied plot....
Review: Sure it's graphically intense, but the plot was copied from "Silence of the Lambs." They try to probe the mind of a psycopathic killer to find a suriviving victim. I can't imagine Jennifer Lopez as a shrink, but she seems more fitted to play a counsler at some shelter. I found this movie alittle drab. Come on! We all know that crazed killers were abuse as children.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: She should have stayed a fly-girl...
Review: This movie may have had a chance to be good, not great but good..but to do that they would have had to hire a real actress...Jennifer turns in a completely flat performance...she's nice to look at but that's it...the rest of it was nice eye candy but as far as a "psychological thriller" it doesn't come close....this movie is definetely not in the same league as Altered States, Kiss the Girls and especially not Silence of the Lambs as some have likened it too...those movies will be remembered for a long time(Altered States already has been) but this drivel will be put on the back shelf within 6 months and be forgotten...and hopefully ex fly-girl Jennifer's acting will improve or she'll look for another occupation


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