It’s Summer time again and I’m here waiting for the first blockbuster movie. Iron Man 2 was suppose to start the Summer out with a bang, but the movie ended up, but for Mickey Rourke’s performance, being at best mediocre. Next, the Prince of Persia, according to its trailer, was suppose to take the Indian Jones type adventure movie and propel it to the next level, but it managed to do nothing of the sort. The best movie I’ve seen so far this Summer is surprisingly, Shrek: Forever After. Next came Splice. I wasn’t expecting great things from Splice, but with producer Guillermo del Toro attached to the project, I was at least expecting a decent movie.
Splice starts with Clive Nicoli (Adrien Brody) and Elsa Kast (Sarah Polley) a boyfriend and girlfriend couple whose work as biochemists has just managed to create a new organism. However, Clive and Elsa want to take their findings to the next level and create a new organism using human DNA in the hopes that they can find the cure for a host of genetics diseases. However, in order to do this they much cross both ethical and legal lines that their corporation is not willing to take. Regardless, Clive and Elsa decide to go ahead with their creation in secret. Here is where the movie takes a weird turn. Some critics have compared it to the movie The Fly because it deals with the consequences of taking science too far. I would compare Splice to a movie called Parenthood. That’s right, because for the next hour Clive and Elsa spend their time raising the humanoid they have named Dren (Delphine Chanéac). Derd’s life cycle is quick, so they start of with a baby and end up with a teenage in a matter of weeks.
By now you’re probably thinking thing couldn’t get any stranger, but they do. I won’t get into, but it’s weird. Weird enough to cause an entire theater to burst out in laughter. The movie covers other issues like Elsa desire for a child of her own and her attachment to Dren and whose DNA was used to create Dren. The movie climax’s with Dren going through a huge transformation, after this point, about the last ten minutes, the movie becomes your typical run of the mill horror movie.
The performances by Adrien and Sarah are nothing special. Only Delphine offers a performance worth mentioning. The special effects were good which means they were seamless, but nothing we haven’t seen before. Even the humanoid design, which I’m sure was inspired by Del Toro wasn’t enough to draw my attention. Fortunately it’s only the being of Summer. Hopefully, I’ll find our blockbuster before August.
Review
By Milton Brayson
milton@smartcine.com
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