The Cell

The remaking of the dramatic serial killer, Hannibal Lecter, against the background of the F.B.I., as high-tech science fiction, tempered well with horror, infused nicely with pyrotechnic fantasy, resulting in a likely cult film that can and will transcend the midnight movie circuit to mainstream box office.

"The Cell" is, as noted, science fiction, fantasy, horror. But it is so much more. It is so much more for one reason:

The story that runs throughout.

The story of "The Cell" is science fiction, fantasy, horror. But it isn't. It is the serial killer (again). But it isn't. It is pop psychology and pop culture. But it isn't.

And because it is (and isn't) all this it will most certainly be denounced by so-called critics who will wish, quickly, to relegate it to the midnight movie circuit.

Why? Because it isn't garden-variety crap that Hollywood grinds from its politically correct bowels.

Jennifer Lopez is Catherine Deane, a social worker who has the ability to establish rapport with clients of a troubled nature. Because she has this knack she is recruited for a project involving technology that is used to link between her mind and the mind of a little boy trapped by a coma.

Can she link to him and bring him out of the coma?

She almost makes contact, but then--

"The Cell" was directed by a fellow named Tarsem, who is a first-time director. You wouldn't know this fact, though, watching "The Cell", as it opens on images on black stallions, desert vistas, Dali-inspired landscapes, and other visuals usually reserved for more experienced and mature filmmakers.

That he uses all this to establish the mind-link methodology signals this is not a run-of-the-mill, big-budget, high-tech Hollywood movie or film, and that the moviegoer will get their ticket price out of the experience.

The mind-link story would be enough to make for an interesting film, but Tarsem does not stop there. He adds a second story line: The F.B.I. finds the body of a victim of a serial killer who is given to drowning his prey and then making them up to look like dolls. In this story Vince Vaughn plays an agent named Novak, who believes (like Clarice Starling) the killer has a ritual he performs. A ritual that means the next victim is only hours from death. But with a slick twist in the plot Novak captures the killer--a man of a nasty and vile nature named Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio). With him in custody it is only a matter of time to save his victim.

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