HEAD TRIP
THE CELL
Directed by Tarsem Singh
Screenplay by Mark Protosevich
With Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn
UA South R 110 min
Tarsem is a successful director of music videos who has added the gravitas of a last name, Singh, for his first foray into feature films. You'd think "Singh" would work for the musical stuff, and could be dropped when he went tuneless (unless you count Howard Shore's cacophonous score.) But I digress...
His attitude toward movies seems to be that it doesn't matter what you say or do as long as it looks good. And at times it looks very good. The opening, with Jennifer Lopez swathed in brilliant white pacing the knife-edged tops of dramatically shadowed desert dunes, is the pure distilled essence of an expensive commercial. She is at the time prowling the subconscious of a small boy (more on this later), and we can only assume that this is a small boy who will grow up to be a fashion photographer - these are not images that dominate the subconscious of your typical prepubescent male.
All right, here's the deal - she's a psychologist working in an experimental scientific program that allows her, suspended in midair in a form-fitting corrugated body suit alongside her patient, to enter the kid's subconscious and find out what's gone wrong in there. The science is reminiscent of '50s sci-fi potboilers. Things aren't so bad in the little boy's brain, but they take a turn for the worse when FBI agent Novak (Vince Vaughn) finds out about this program and recruits her to take a side trip into the brain of a comatose serial killer (Vincent D'Onofrio), who has a victim stashed somewhere and there's no time to lose!
Singh cares little enough about dialogue that he allows screenwriter Mark Protosevich lines like "If we can't stop him, he ain't gonna stop himself," and to be on the safe side he imports plot and style elements from movies as diverse as "Silence of the Lambs", "Altered States", and the animated "Fantastic Planet". He has stocked his cast with middle-echelon stars, and seems not to have wasted much time directing them, with the result that Lopez spends most of her time trying to look sympathetic and concerned, Vaughn looks worried and a little lost, and D'Onofrio just looks crazy. Ultimately, Singh is banking everything on his slick visuals, and while sometimes he nails it, as often as not it gets away from him. A recurring image of Jennifer Lopez as the Virgin Mary is one that could be charitably forgotten.
If you like shots of kidnapped young women being systematically drowned in a plexiglass cell, screaming "Daddy! Mommy! Help!" as the water level rises, you'll be treated to them randomly throughout the movie. If you're fond of disemboweling and vivisection, look no further. If you're a fan of crisp story, character, and credibility, hang in there. Something's bound to turn up soon.
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