Review: Eye Candy. Visually orgasmic. The story has its intriguing qualities such as the psycho killer's methods. But other than that, the story is kind of [slow].
Rating: 
Summary: * * SCARY AND BEAUTIFUL * *
Review: This movie is one of the most twisted and gruesome films I have ever had the fortune to encounter. Amazingly enough, I was definitely impressed. The premise involves a child therapist Catherine (played quite impressively by Jennifer Lopez) who is compelled to enter the mind of a serial killer who has fallen into a coma thanks to a rare and complicated disease. Problem is, he still has one victim who will be dead if the FBI can't find her soon and there is no way that he will ever wake up. So, the FBI is made aware of a experiment that Catherine is involved in - basically, she mind-travels to a young comatose boy's brain and tries to help him internally. So far, very little success. That's not the point though - the FBI gets Catherine to cooperate and we are thrown into a world of emotional decay and fanatic turmoil.
The graphics are absolutely beautiful and stunning - in a sense, I felt like I was transported into a different world. The mind of a killer is not easily understood and we are shown this through elaborately twisted scenery and setups. Rarely do we sympathize with killers in general and I was very much seduced into this film because they purposely showed the killer had once been a child like so many of us. I especially like the parallel between the little boy that could have been much different and the sadistic creature that he becomes. It wasn't overdone or underplayed in anyway - I thought that it was perfect.
I was also seduced by the colors and costumes that were created for this movie. The clothing that Lopez sports in her trip in uncovering the location is outlandish and fits perfectly with the dark atmosphere. This is the only film where I saw Catherine and not Lopez. Seeing the actress and not what she is portraying is never too good!
If you are hoping for a deeper plot, you won't find it here. The movie is easy enough to understand; however, the visuals are not quite so easy to stomach. Make no mistake, this is dark and gruesome - the final confrontation between Catherine and the killer is very bloody and vivid. The killer's mind is completely introverted and everything he touches mentally is warped and twisted. The director never lets you forget that the killer is a sex offender and there are replicas of female bodies deliberately positioned to reflect this.
This film is excellent in portraying the twisted and multi-faceted personalities of a sex killer. If you plan on seeing this, better do so with a very, very open mind. Expect the worst of human nature as well as visual depictions of them. I know that my sister completely freaked when she saw some of the more graphic scenes - you have been warned.
Rating: 
Summary: Have I seen this movie before?
Review: I THINK I HAVE. Why did I ever this movie if I've seen it before allready. When? Well about over ten years ago. And the movie was "Exorcist II". All these machines that give people the ability to enter the minds of the sick has been done before and the only movie that reminded me of it was "Exorcist II". All the weird imagery and music and labyrinth mind trip was there. It seems now that Hollywood can not even try to think up an original story. This movie was "Silence of the Lambs, Exoricst II, and Seven put together. The acting was okay and yeah, the ending was kinda of sad but could they at least have tried to be a bit original.?
Rating: 
Summary: oh the agony
Review: The bad news...a serial killer has just captured his latest victim.
He's imprisoned her in his holding cell and if the FBI don't get her in a
certain time frame she will be drown. The good news? The FBI have just
caught the killer. The bad news? He's in a coma and they don't know where
the woman is being held. The good news? A Psychologist (Jennifer Lopez) is
part of a team which has developed a means to send a doctor inside the brain
of comotose patients to assist in their regaining consciousness. The bad
news? She's never been inside the brain of a killer before.
It is an interesting concept, though it strikes heavily the memories
of Dream Scape from the early 80s. Unfortunately they don't build any
tension or interest in the characters. Instead the director relies heavily
on the computer and ends up making a twisted art film.
Rating: 
Summary: An Incredibly Good Looking Void
Review: You could imagine the look on Jennifer Lopez's agent's face when the star said she would like to play Catherine Deane in Tarsem Singh's "The Cell". Coming off of a Golden Globe nomination for "Selena" and a growing fanbase after convincingly smouldering alongside George Clooney in Steven Soderbergh's "Out Of Sight", not to mention a double-platinum debut album and two number one pop singles, "The Cell" wasn't exactly a safe or reliable bet. Whether Lopez wanted to prove herself to be a versatile actress or tried to turn herself into a Latino Jodie Foster is unclear (whilst the tabloids massacre her alleged egotism, she is a very talented girl), however, time will tell that "The Cell" wasn't the big hit New Line Cinema, after cashing in on David Fincher's "Se7en" (which is clearly what "The Cell" wanted to outdo), or Miss J-Lo hoped it would be, commercially or artistically.
Firstly, it is understandable why Mark Protosevich's script lay dormant in "development hell" for so long until it winged its way to Lopez's greenlighting hands. Scriptwise, the only thing that separates "The Cell" from amongst its peers is how sadistic and nasty it gets, what with all the drowning, skin-bleaching, piercings, child abuse, eviscerations and all. However, the basic scenes and characters are all there from every single latter-day serial slasher posing as a psychological thriller; the open-minded empath and her considerate pals, the disturbed-sweaty cop whose been "wanting to catch this guy for years" and the psycho who is, for all intents and purposes, irredeemable. It is a testament to Tarsem Singh that, rather than flesh out the tedious script which has been heard millions of times before, he goes for the stylistic juggular.
In terms of art direction, costumes, makeup and cinematography, Singh's film really is something else. Whilst the real world appears to share more than a few likenesses with overblown rap videos (slo-mo helicopter shots, water that is always translucently blue), the dream sequences are amazingly evoked. Some images and scenes will sear themselves into your mind regardless of how dramatically redundant you find the rest of the film; Lopez's first encounter with D'Onofrio's "monster" is something to behold ("WHERE DID YOU COME FROM!?!"). Whilst Edouard Henriques and Michele Burke duly deserved their Oscar nomination, Eiko Ishioka and April Napier's costumes are resplendant and beautiful, in the most nihlistic and weird way, with Ishioka carrying on her trademark "muscle-tissue" motif as seen in her Oscar-winning work on Francis Ford Coppolla's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" and her recent Bjork video "Cocoon".
Of course, with such scorching visuals being given so much adoring attention, Singh tellingly goes against mainstream moviemaking by portraying the film's characters as merely set dressing. Lopez appears warm and graceful, Vaughn sullen and shaky and D'Onofrio stark raving mad (though for a meatier display see Stanley Kubrick's "Full Metal Jacket"), neither are given the full momentum to give the audience an emotional involvement. As the film's situation spins out-of-control, it's not a question of "will they die" but more of "where can I get that outfit?" This is most likely what Singh was aiming for, having made his mark in advertising wherein images are all that are needed to hook people in. Films like "The Cell" not only require something to look at but also some involving debate and subtle characterisation. What Singh's film lacks in substance it almost makes up for in style ... almost.
Rating:
Summary: JLo's Madonna Video....
Review: ....if Director Singh himself says that the visuals took precedence over the plot and the storymaking, what else should the viewer do, but turn down the sound and watch the stunning scenes go by? Oh yeah. Get your copy of JLo's CD and simul-play it.
Rating:
Summary: The Garbage Cell
Review: For a movie that starts out so promising, 'The Cell' turns out to be a big piece of garbage- and unfortunatly I paid to see this in a theatre, and so REALLY threw my money away. This movie is so lame. I'm so sick and tired of these modern 'psycho-thrillers' with these sick and twisted legions of psychopaths murdering people in the most horrific of ways. Haven't we seen enough guts being pulled out of people's bellies via thier umbilical cords and twisted, demented lunatics dissecting their victims like they are Thanksgiving turkey? Well, I guess if you get off on freaky slaughtering lunatics and demented nut cases this film will be for you. As for me, no thanks...
I'm sorry, but simply having a main character who is a demented butcherer of living humans will not make a good script or watchable movie. The days of 'Psycho' are over because the sort of 'how many ways can we tear a person's organs out and prepare their brains for dinner' films of today have nothing in common with the quality of horror and suspense of the true classics. If you want to see a good modern horror film, see a John Carpenter film. And for a good psych-thriller, see his 'In The Mouth of Madness'. But don't waste your time on 'The Cell'.
What is it with modern viewers hang-ups on twisted homicidal lunatics, anyway? Why do we pay to see this garbage? If anybody ever gave me this DVD, I would throw it in the Cell behind my house- the Cell where the garbage is kept! That's where this piece of crap belongs!!!
