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14

everybody hating on JLo needs to get sent to The Cell

Review by matt lynch ★★★

As lovely as it is deeply stupid, like a MATRIX knockoff designed by a committee of Bob Flanagan, Damien Hirst, and Henry Darger. At its best a genuinely unsettling freakout distilled from a lot of ostentatiously grim, intrinsically misogynist pop serial killer imagery, and at its worst reinforcing the stereotypical crap about violent mental illness being rooted almost exclusively in sexual dysfunction and trauma.

2

These scientists are idiots. Placing Jennifer Lopez into my comatose subconscious is one way to guarantee i’ll never wake up

2

Imagine "Silence of the Lambs" filtered through the fever dream of someone who has spent too much time in a bazaar in Marrakech, and you will have an idea of what "The Cell" has in store for its audience. Combining the stylized, pan-cultural aesthetic of Tarsem's Singh's imagination with an already interesting concept, the film is an effective, sometimes disturbing, thriller. It is slowly paced, but completely engrossing and visually stunning.

1

if silence of the lambs and seven took acid and it's fucking brilliant

4

Fairly ludicrous genre-bending studio script that tries to merge VR cyberpunk therapy dream-sharing with a knockoff Thomas Harris misogynistic serial killer of the week procedural featuring lots of baffling bursts of sympathetic sentimentality and offensively cliché pop psychology (even for the genre). But luckily then rising commercial/music video director Tarsem Singh doesn't really appear to be all that interested in the thinly sketched characters or moral dilemmas as much as he is in the pure visual, artificial sensory experience of this world. Pulling from many of the various stylish genre trends of the 90s (you can see both The Matrix and Se7en in here), and receiving some helpful assists from Cronenberg composer Howard Shore and legendary costume designer Eiko Ishioka…

9

God I love this movie. So underrated and unique, very original premise and executed perfectly. The biggest surprise is just how good JLo is in it, this is SO NOT the kind of movie you expect JLo to be in, and yet, she’s fantastic in it. I much prefer this early era of her film career over what she does now, she seemed to step out of the box during this time with her film choices, Angel Eyes and Enough are 2 others worth checking out for great JLo performances, the actress she is today is worlds away from the actress she once was. I’d love to know whether she would sign on to a movie like this now.

Anyway,…

13

I hadn’t seen this since I watched it in the theater. I really loved this though. Some of the visuals when they’re inside Stargher’s head are gorgeously nightmarish. When Stargher had the tapestries wrapped around the walls connected to his back, the vivisected horse, Stargher’s black cloak materializing in the pool…..literally every scene in Stargher’s head is visually arresting in some form. It’s also a pretty clever Sci-fi concept fused with a police - serial killer drama. This would probably be a 5 star film if it had nailed the cat and mouse detective drama a bit better. I would say I would love to see a sequel to this, but apparently they did….and it looks terrible. So maybe not. Loved this though and I’m definitely bumping Tarsem Singh’s The Fall up on my watchlist. 

Degrees of Kevin Bacon: 1
1. Vincent D’Onofrio and Kevin Bacon in J.F.K.

3

god Inception could have been so much cooler

4

Creepy and beautiful

2

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Film #11 of "Scavenger Hunt #3" Challenge!
Task #11 : A film about a serial killer!
letterboxd.conexionsite.com/naughty/list/scavenger-hunt-3/
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Director Tarsem Singh's psychological thriller may not have been a 5 star movie but it wasn't for lack of trying! Extraordinarily gorgeous visuals coupled with grotesque imagery that are the stuff of nightmares subjected my eyeballs to a binge of epic proportions!

Jennifer Lopez and Vince Vaughn's characters were quite likable and made the journey into the fantastical world of the unbelievable believable!

But the real stars of the film was the original premise and of course the striking visuals! For the artistic inclined out there the film has many scenes inspired by real works of art!

5

Director's Cut

I came across an editorial showcasing the late great Eiko Ishioka's costume designs for The Cell and was so fascinated by them that I decided to run with the sudden urge to drop what I was doing and watch the film just to see them. Spoiler alert: they did not disappoint.

Ishioka's creations, paired with Tarsem Singh's instantly recognizable visual palette (replete with the striking fruits of his imagination) and a haunting score from Howard Shore, make The Cell an undeniably arresting piece of sensory-driven entertainment. With solid performances from Jennifer Lopez, Vince Vaughn, and a terrifying Vincent D'onofrio (not to mention ing work from the ever underrated Marianne Jean-Baptiste and Dylan Baker), this is a strong case…