Cell - The Movie

  • This message board permanently closed on June 30th, 2020 at 4PM EDT and is no longer accepting new members.

Machine's Way

“Go then, there are other worlds than these.”
Jul 13, 2009
671
2,877
44
Baltimore
I will revive this discussion as I just got around to watching this last night. I had been excited about this when it was first announced but that quickly faded as the reviews started to come in. I decided to not spend my $9.99 for the VOD and wait until it was actually free. Glad I did, so the only thing lost was the hour and half of my life.
I honestly knew it was going to be bad the first few SECONDS of the film and here's why. The opening title sequence looked like a first day film school student did it. I mean who cares about the titles and how they are right?? no, this literally looked like it was just the working cut before they add the nice fonts and stuff. It was just big black bars with standard white text. It looks awful and beyond amateurish.
Not much more can be said that I have not read already about this on here and other places, but the opening scene might be the best part of this movie even tho the location of the pulse was changed to an airport.
There is absolutely NO chemistry between Cusack and Jackson, I found this surprising as they worked well in 1408. Cusack looked sick, and as someone else stated, Micheal Jackson (ish) it was weird watching him. As for Jackson, well he could of just been anyone definetly not the Samuel L. that everyone knows. He has the kinda trademark about him that he brings to every movie and that in my opinon is why he gets cast so much and its expected, kinda like casting Christoper Walken, no matter the role you know what your getting. That is not the case here, just flat flat flat.
The pace is beyond rushed, the filming is super choppy. The plot completely lost. The Raggety man a complete fail. Hell I didnt even care if he found his kid or wife at one point. All emotion lost. I can go on and on, but the movie was just an awful adaption of the book in every way possible including the butchered ending that really made no sense at all.
After reading the book I thought to myself, this should make for a great easy to adapt movie. Well I was wrong about that. We can add this to the massive pile of SK movie failures.
 

Neil W

Well-Known Member
May 27, 2008
1,203
2,592
Isle of Wight UK
When a tone/message from mobile phones - sorry, cellphones - has the effect of rebooting the listener's brain (which means nearly everyone) and turning them into ravening zombies, Clay decides to go looking for his son, picking up other survivors on the way.

John Cusack, Sam Jackson, the wonderful Isabelle Fuhrman, a Stephen King story driven by action and event - what could go wrong?

This movie, basically. The book, to be fair, was never one of my favourite King offerings - it just didn't work for me. I found it far too generic a zombie-world offering and the characters did little to live in my memory.

The film takes that and doesn't so much add nothing, it (unbelievably) reduces it. So what we have is a film which is largely jittercam zombie-avoidance. Which wears thin pretty quickly, particularly as there has been so very, very much of it in recent years.

I can't think of a reason for saying "Go and see this film."
 

César Hernández-Meraz

Wants to be Nick, ends up as Larry
May 19, 2015
605
4,416
44
Aguascalientes, Mexico
When a tone/message from mobile phones - sorry, cellphones - has the effect of rebooting the listener's brain (which means nearly everyone) and turning them into ravening zombies, Clay decides to go looking for his son, picking up other survivors on the way.

John Cusack, Sam Jackson, the wonderful Isabelle Fuhrman, a Stephen King story driven by action and event - what could go wrong?

This movie, basically. The book, to be fair, was never one of my favourite King offerings - it just didn't work for me. I found it far too generic a zombie-world offering and the characters did little to live in my memory.

The film takes that and doesn't so much add nothing, it (unbelievably) reduces it. So what we have is a film which is largely jittercam zombie-avoidance. Which wears thin pretty quickly, particularly as there has been so very, very much of it in recent years.

I can't think of a reason for saying "Go and see this film."

It does start nicely. It looks great when the first zombie wave hits. And then, nothing.

The book sets up the hooded man and then shows all he can do, making him a worthy adversary. In the movie, they waste every opportunity to make him shine.

I liked the protagonists. And I did like how they did Jacob. He looks good and convinces me of his smartness. (And makes me think about how I like some people's faces more when they do not smile, as he looks cute here, but average in It and on his Instagram; in this I include myself, as I like myself better when I am not smiling).
 

Moderator

Ms. Mod
Administrator
Jul 10, 2006
52,243
157,324
Maine
Moderator
Question for you Marsha. Steve is credited in the screenplay for this movie. Did he actually write the dialogue for this film or was that just a credit because he wrote the book?
I don't remember the specifics of that script but IMDB also credits the screenplay to Allen Alleca. I could be wrong (yeah, it happens) but when a screenplay is based upon a book or short story, I don't think writing credits are given just for quotes taken from the book and used by the actual screenwriter.