FilmBlather.com

"Son of my mom!"

I read a review that proudly proclaimed "If you do see The Cell and enjoy it, please seek psychiatric help." Needless to say, I ran straight for the Yellow Pages.

Writer Mark Protosevich and director Tarsem Singh, both making their feature debut, have crafted the year's first masterpiece, an insanely ambitious movie that miraculously fulfills every one of its ambitions. The script introduces so many elements that you think it can't possibly deliver on them all. But then it does, and how.

The Cell has been dismissed by some as just another serial killer movie but I defy anyone to view it back-to-back with The Silence of the Lambs and find any but the most superficial similarities. Yes, there's a serial killer involved -- his name is Carl Stargher and he's played by Vincent D'Onofrio. He locks teenage girls in an fully automated death chamber that gradually fills up with water to drown its inhabitant. His latest victim is Julia Hickson. The FBI, led by Agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) know that she's still alive but they don't know where this death chamber is located. When they capture Stargher, he goes into a coma in which, the doctors say, he'll stay forever because of a rare kind of schizophrenia. Things aren't looking bright for finding the girl.

At the same time, scientists are experimenting with technology that allows a person to literally enter someone else's mind for a period of time. It's currently being used to try to bring a billionaire's boy out of a coma -- child psychologist Catharine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) has been working on the project for months. Now, it seems, this device is the FBI's only hope for finding Julia and Catharine is sent to explore the farthest reaches of Carl Stargher's imagination.

As you could imagine, going inside the mind of a deranged serial killer would have to be one twisted experience and Tarsem (who usually goes by his first name alone) is more than equal to the challenge of conveying it visually. Through elaborate sets, grandiose costumes, a terrific score and an imagination that is an early sign of a genius, he creates a fully convincing group of imaginary worlds. Some of these sequences are so vividly imagined that they are frightening -- not always because there is something scary happening on screen but because what we are being shown is so brilliantly bizarre.

Many will marvel, I'm sure, about The Cell's incredible visuals but focusing only on that aspect is doing this magnificent film an injustice. It's also a perfectly respectable working-against-the-clock police thriller; an excellent psychodrama; great, stirring sci-fi and probably more. The action culminates in an incredibly powerful climax that combines everything into one astonishing sequence. A lot of things go on in a lot of different places at the same time but everything seems to matter. I found myself unable to distinguish between the heroes and the villains; each character became a person I cared about. For the first time since The Matrix, I felt like I was watching an action movie where real imagination, rather than the whims of studio execs, made it to the screen. My heart leapt at the prospect.

People have accused The Cell of reveling in filth, of being pretentious, trite and incoherent. I usually have the utmost respect for others' opinions, but these people couldn't have been paying attention. Here's a high-profile film that seems to have operated outside the Hollywood movie-mill. If it achieves commercial success, perhaps it'll positively influence the next summer season. Here's to hoping -- meanwhile, I'm gonna skip The Art of War and see The Cell again instead.