Social Bookmarking
[Splice]
Plot:Elsa and Clive, two young rebellious scientists, defy legal and ethical boundaries and forge ahead with a dangerous experiment: splicing together human and animal DNA to create a new organism. Named Dren, the creature rapidly develops from a deformed female infant into a beautiful but dangerous winged human-chimera, who forges a bond with both of her creators - only to have that bond turn deadly.
Cast:Adrian Brody,
Sarah Polley.
My Thoughts:Decent, but not all the way there.
Review:"Splice" is another horror/scifi film which lays out the evils, harms, and serious repercussions of genetic experimentation. Only this one has a much better monster. The pic follows two scientists named Elsa (Polley), and Clive (Brody). They are doing genetic tests to come up with cures for diseases such as alzheimers, cancer, etc. But their research is shut down by a higher up in the company who fears the societal blowback should any of the research go public.
So being typical scifi/horror movie scientists, they disobey his orders, and simply take the research underground, splicing together human and animal DNA unbeknownst to their boss. They end up creating a creature which they name Dren. Dren seems harmless at first, but as she grows, she becomes highly unstable, and eventually reaches a point wher her presence becomes a severe threat to Elsa and Clive's safety.
"Splice" works on most basic levels because th cast is solid enough. I don't find myself annoyed, bored, or irritated watching Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody act on-screen. Mostly because both are talented actors, and you need talented actors to carry a film like this where the two leads mostly play off of one another, and have to carry the whole 1 hour and 40 minute film considering the supporting cast is close to nonexistent beyond maybe one character who gets more than 4 scenes.
Polley and Brody's characters Elsa and Clive are also pretty well-developed. Elsa at first is excited about the creation of Dren, and the possibilities of being able to watch her grow under her and Clive's care. But Clive thinks Dren should be treated like the experiment that she is, and believes Elsa is getting too emotionally attached to Dren. In the middle of all of this, is where the conflict lies between the two scientists, and meanwhile, this distracts them from paying necessary attention to Dren's rapid development which might prove to be fatal for them in the end.
But the film also sports a nice twist as the story continues, because as things move along, Clive and Elsa begin to switch roles as far as their feelings towards Dren are concerned, and this coincides with Dren's development from a tiny, kind of cute pea-pod-looking creature, to a strange female-cancer-patient looking creature. This series of plot turns, along with two very excellent scenes, which are the films bread and butter...one involving an exhibit in front of a large crowd, which goes all wrong for Elsa and Clive, and the other being a very bizarre love-scene near the end of the movie.
"Splice" isn't altogether perfect though, and what hurts the movie beyond it's positives, is that it doesn't really push the envelope enough with Dren. Granted, Dren effects-wise, is a very odd and intriguing specimen to watch on-screen, but I didn't feel as if the writers pushed the envelope enough with the films so-called monster. I felt just when Dren was crossing over into that realm of being a true villain within the movie, the writers kind of pulled back and didn't allow her to go all out.
Not sure why this was. Maybe they wanted to do a horror/scifi movie without the large amounts of blood and gore, or maybe it was just a script with it's weak points. But my theory is that maybe they wanted more of a comparison, rather than a big contrast between Elsa and Clive, and Dren. Maybe they didn't want Dren to become "The Monster". Maybe they wanted to keep Elsa and Clive as the true "Monsters" of the movie. I mean after all, they create Dren, and then when Dren grows, they try everything from controlling her, to experimenting on her further, to mutilating her, and even denying her sunlight.
So perhaps the writers thought by keeping Dren from becoming a killer-beast on a rampage, it would keep the overall perspective of the movie straight and perfect. Either way, I wanted more scenes of Dren tearing stuff up, and I didn't get that, unfortunately. "Splice" does bare a very strange, disturbing, and twisted ending though, so that more than makes up for it's lack of monster mayhem. "Splice" is certainly a total 180 from the usual scifi/horror material. It doesn't quite reach that bar of excellence though, but it atleast gives a worthy effort.
Positives:Good effects work on Dren, great directing style by Vincenzo Natali, good performances by Polley and Brody, two very powerful standout scenes as mentioned in the review, and an ending with impact
Negatives::I wanted the envelope to be pushed more with Dren violence wise.
Overall:Three stars out of four.
(
Talk about it in the Forums!)
(
Back to the main page)
