The Cell
My son is an abomination. He has no soul.
A review by Mike Shea Movie Rating: ( * * * * · ) DVD Rating: ( * * * * * )
I had a lot of mixed emotions over the Cell. The short of it is that The Cell is a very good movie. You shouldn't go in expecting the next best sci-fi epic since The Matrix, but instead thinking along the line of a fun but disturbing crime story. Once again, the suits manage to ruin a movie by giving you previews. You are better off not knowing anything about the movie, so try to see as little as possible beforehand. But make sure you have a strong stomach. I can watch most violent movies without any issue at all, but the Cell had some images so disturbing, they stuck in my head for days. The dream scenes in the movie are done extremely well, Eyes Wide Shut get censored even though there is no violence what so ever. Anyway, if you had a hard time with Seven, give this one a miss.
The DVD is a very solid representation with a 16x9 enhanced 2.35 to 1 picture and a Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack. There is a very good director's commentary with Tarsem Singh, who unlike most directors, filled his commentary with about twice as many words as possible. I got a lot of his vision of the movie out of it and frankly loved his ability to make fun of himself and his movie. He doesn't take it too seriously. There are also a series of deleted scenes that do a good job of filling in a couple of blanks.
I guess I can't say this movie is as good as Ebert said it was, but it is still an excellent piece of work. It was far more disturbing than I expected it to be and didn't quite give me as many crazy visuals as I wanted, but what I did get, I liked a whole lot. I will also agree with Ebert in that all the crap the suits feed us make a movie like The Cell stand out as truly different.