Sunday, September 05, 2010

Splice


I'll admit it: Cronenberg's "The Fly" brought tears to my eyes. Here is what you can garner from that: I can suspend disbelief, I'm a touch old and something of a softie. Brody and Polley are a fine update to the Goldblum and Davis pair...and Splice is a worthy update to "The Fly", with several twists and changes that reflect the director's (Natali) sensibilities and the changing role of science in our lives.

Cautionary tales are cautionary tales, and Splice blows up the bio-engineering fear that grips the food and medical press reporters and then takes it ...somewhere else. What looks like a creature feature really cuts deeper into the psyche of the scientists.

It used to take a lot of sheep to make a single vial of Insulin. Science changed that, via bio-engineering. The "trans-genic" organism as "drug factory" is not an entirely preposterous jumping off point. Just add hubris and stir...

Natali, the director of "Cube" keeps the story moving even as he builds tension. The creature effects start early, and never stop. While we move from "Robocop" view slugs to Dren we also dig deeper into our pair of scientists. They unravel even as "Dren" reaches new levels of complexity.

The cinematography, music and fx never crowd out the human story at work in this "sci-fi horror" film, and I did not miss the crew of attractive teenagers that are normally slaughtered in the service of scaring us...I think the director wanted us to leave the theater thinking rather than frightened. Just a guess.

Recommended

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