Splice Movie 2009 Review

             Before there was Jigsaw with his nifty (and brutal) mechanical traps in the Saw franchise, there was Cube, its rightful and infinitely superior precursor. I consider it one of the finest psychological thrillers; with a Lafkaesque setting - a complex maze containig deadly traps, strong plot and compelling performances.It rightly put debut screenwriter-director Vincenzo Natali in the spotlight, and achieved cult status(this is about the time where you click www.isohunt.com and commence torrent download). Needless to say, i was more than excited (read: gushing like morbid schoolgirl) when i heard he was the man behind Splice, which also boasted of A-list and Oscar contending actors Adrien Brody (winner, Best Actor, The Pianist) and Sarah Polley (nominated for the screenplay of poignant drama Away from her,also Polley's directional debut). Though brody seemed an odd choice for a sci-fi thriller slash horror,Polley's is no stranger to the horror genre: she kicked zombie ass in the 2004 remake of Romeo's Dawn of the Dead. Add to that a clever-if-tired premise (genetic manipulation, scientists playing God, or as i like to call it: 2010: A Frankenstein Odyssey), and Guillermo Del Toro as producer, and you've got all the makings of a horror classic, right? Wrong!!

Plot:

Elsa and Clive(Sarah and Adrien), twor rebellious genetic engineers at Nucleic Exchange Research and Dvelopment ('NERD', get it?) defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: spliting together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. Named Dren the cretaure rapidly develops from a deformed female infant ibto beautiful but dangerous winged human -chimera, who forges a bond with both of her creators-only to have that bond turn deadly.

In a nutshell, cautionary 'Don't screw with Mother Nature' tale turns into a bizarrely and inexplicably into don't screw with mother-or father pulp fiction. It's the ultimate thinking man's B-movie.

Solid acting, check. Brilliant use of CGI (especially given a mere 30 million production budget), check. It's the unabashedly derivative script that's the downer. I mean, the buildup was extraordinary, but i'd would have liked to see less glaring loopholes and more serious commentary on the moral delimmas faced by the two scientists, the corruption of scienceand the individual and the 'perversion of one's own moral fabric', themes David Cronenberg has effectively touched upon with B-movie. Instead, we see Elsa go all Rosemary's Baby on us, providing her own genes to 'create'Dren (why? Apparently because ger mother was a nut-job.My sentiments exactly), and later doing on the monster-child like a proud mommu, as she struggles to cope with the fact that being part scorpion, part amphibian, part bird, part rabbit, part Heidi Klum, Dren's growing up to be quite the Venus Flytrap. Didn't see that covered in a chapter of The Nursing Mother's Companion, didja Elsa? To its credit, though, some of the best scenes of the film are where Elsa and Clive struggle with their possessiveness as parents versus their moral responsibility; ther's a fine sequence where an attempted murder leads to a rather startling discovery- but i won't ruin that for you.

            Another major plus point is the fact that Dren is an amaingly three-dimensional character; Delphine Chanaec is simutaneously terrifying, tragic and compassionate as the misunderstood humanoid struggling to cope with the plethora of emotions. So far, so good. It's the second half of the film where the plot of the film makes swift tangent from the robust to ridiculous. First off: Dren's a a murderous carnivorous: i mean, she eats a rabbit raw, and her 'parents' react as though she got a C in Algebra."bad, Dren!" i mean, this isn't your regular case of baby-go-kaka on carpet.hven't these guys seen The Omen? The Bad Seed? Then there is a really insane bit: earlier in the film, Clive detests Dren and wants to kill the creature- abomination of science and all that. Ltaer on, though, because of no othermotive except 'boys will be boys', as she grows into a breathtaking beautiful creature from Pandora (read Avatar minus blue paint), she arises more than just from her parental instincts. Needless to say,  Elsa is horrified when finds out. unfortunately for the movie, so are audiences. Then there's the horrid one-dimensional dialogue, generic to the hilt. "What's the worst that could happen?" (She was a stinger in her tail, you idiots!) "This was never about science, was it?" (Really? What was your first clue?) Q:"What was that?' A:"A mistake." (Yeah, no sh**, Sherlock.) It's a downward spiral from where the filmresorts to the shock-element rather than spinning a traumatic psychological web for the audience; the film is relegated to Jeepers Creepers territory by its concluding reels. There's a rather interesting twist midway into the movie i haven't mentioned, but how i wish it was explored in a less schlocky manner.

            Both Adrion Brody and Sarah Polley make the best of the material; it's just that their characters seem half-baked. It's Delphine Cheneac who steals the show, even when she is reduced to playing cardboard cutout villain. Viewers must be warned that there is extremely disturbing content in the film-bestiality/incest-and they murder a poor kittey. oh, and the M.Night Shyamalan inspired 'twist' at the end (which even your massi will see coming from miles away)was so painfully obvious, i wanted to splice my wrists. No wait, i meant slice.

             Watch the movie if you are the lover of the genre: its a refreshing change from the pointless remakes/slasher flicks out there (i mean, a Nightmare on Elm Street remake? Why, Hollywood, why?) and for its obvious potential, i just wish the writers hadn't lost the plotright about the time its two principal characters did. Rated two and a half stars out of five.