The Cell (200)

Plot: Catherine Dean (Jennifer Lopez) is a psychotherapist working for a unconventional and innovative new technique of treatment, allowing her mind enter in to her patients minds. They have found a revolutionary approach to helping patients through their authentic thoughts and memories. However, the researchers are in risk of getting shut down since they haven’t been able to prove any concrete progress. Catherine decides to take a risk to save the work they have been doing when F.B.I. agent, Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn), asks her to step in to the mind of a serial killer. She is in danger of being under his control by doing this, but she believes she might be able to reach out to him, get him to trust her, and help uncover where his existing victims are. Catherine learns about the killer’s tragic past of child abuse and aggression. She forms a trusted bond between the two of them starting with him as a child. Catherine begins to understand him and gets closer to him, she is in danger of being one of his victims as well.

Review: The psychological themes, creativity, and insight presented are very strong. It goes in to the concept that if you die in a dream you die in real life. Catherine becomes so composed and involved in the life of this killer. Since her belief is so strong, death in her mindset would lead to death or injury in real life. This blurs the lines or fiction and reality and also says something about the power of belief. I liked that they didn’t ride him off as a psycho killer that shouldn’t be understood. Obviously, the film wanted to show a multi-dimensional villain, and actually it is debatable whether he is truly a villain or a victim. We are shown a character who was tormented and belittled as a child and turned around to be even more sadistic than the person who did this to him, by watching others squirm. We go from feeling for him to being disturbed, but in the end we realize that he is an extremely troubled human being, both sadistic and tragic.

The Cell is a great looking film, with chilling, dark, and striking images put in this fantasy world of the serial killer’s mind. We even get a great deal of contrast between the two different minds that are present, one much darker and the other warm and comforting. There is even a level of contrast from when Catherine enters the killers mind to when Peter does, both showing their own interpretations of what they are seeing. Jennifer Lopez is pretty convincing, giving us a strong, ambitious, and very nurturing character. It’s interesting to see Vince Vaughn playing the straight man. He shows concern, but in a much more judgmental and fearful way. The Cell is an interesting and compelling science fiction, serial killer based film. It is an interesting combination, but all of the elements really work to push the film forward in the end.

The Cell 2 (2009)

Plot: Maya (Tessie Santiago) has been helping the F.B.I. find the victims of a serial killer who goes by the name, The Cusp. This killer kills his victims and brings them back to life just to kill them again. He sees this as the ultimate torture device where even death doesn’t free you from his torment. Maya was his victim for a year and died 6 times before she was finally freed from him and only when he thought her to be dead beyond revival. Maya uses her psychic abilities to get in to his head to try to save others from falling victim to his torment the way she did. She is unable to save some though. He now seems to be back and as strong as ever. In hopes of saving other girls’ lives Maya goes in to his mind, unprotected, vulnerable, and essentially sacrificing herself.

Review: The concepts here are built off of those from the original film and are even stronger. It takes the idea of torture to an entirely new level. Thinking of death as being saved from pain is unsettling, but when death is just a tease on your way back to that horrid torturous state with unbearable pain there truly is no way out. Just knowing this would be enough to drive you crazy not to mention the physical pain that you would be forced to deal with over and over again, becoming more damaged and restless each time. Electricity and voltage is forced through his victims. Maya actually says she is afraid of the light not the dark. When it was dark she had a locked wooden box over her head. It was when this box was off of her that she had a reason to be fearful; it meant her tormentor wanted to play. Unfortunately we are given a very poor storyline that doesn’t even begin to complement this powerful theme. So the concept is there, but it can really only lay flat since nothing is done with it.

There is far less character development in this film than in the first. The killer is just dismissed as crazy and nothing more. In the beginning, he is more of a mysterious image as Maya didn’t even know what he looked like after all the time she had been under his control. When he was first revealed, the crazy image did work, giving it a dark, chaotic feel with someone that couldn’t be reasoned with. However, as things went on, it just was way overdone. The acting was terrible too, making this killer completely unrealistic, forced, and laughable, in a very disappointing way. This takes away from all the thought and analyzing the first went in to through the mind of a killer. It also didn’t help that Tessie Santiago as the lead gave an absolutely atrocious performance. I couldn’t feel for her or any of the other characters in the slightest. The Cell 2 had the potential to be a compelling sequel that actually elaborated on what the first film did. It presents the concept, but everything else is so generic and unrealistic that the film ends up working against the thought and insight that we are given in The