Have you ever heard of exploitation media? They're designed to take a single subject and exploit every little thing about it in hopes that the shock value will draw in customers. The categories range from sexploitation (Showgirls), to blacksploitation (The Boondocks) and even to bloodsploitation (Saw, Friday the 13th). There's no doubt that this kind of film has effects on popular culture and future media projects, and some have even gained cult followings.
There's nothing wrong with an over-the-top exploitation project- heck, I love Black Dynamite as much as the next guy - but there are always the rotten few exploitation films that give the rest a bad name. The worst kind of these, in my opinion? The exploitation films that really think they're trying to say more than they mean, and think that because it takes a lot of thought to understand them that it automatically makes the film "Art". And then you have The Cell.
The Cell is sickening to watch; not because of the shock value (of which there is little to begin with), or the long and boring scenes- it's that it tries too hard to be artistic, so hard that it drops everything else and abandons all inklings of plot to try to convince us through visuals that it means more than it really does.
How do I describe this art project? I guess director Tarsem (because last names are not artsy enough) really wanted to show us what goes on inside a screwed-up mind. But if he really wanted to do that, he coulda just asked me to borrow mine. No need to spend 50$ million on a make-your-own version.
But I'm getting way ahead of myself. What's the plot?
Well, we've got our crazy detective, our hot lady, and our serial killer. Mr, Detective is crazy about catching the killer, who apparently loves to kill women slowly by drowning. He's captured another lady and is apprehended, but cannot reveal the woman's prison place because he is in a drug-induced coma.
After much discussion, the cops decide that the best thing to do would be to (get this) enter the killer's disturbed mind in hopes of discovering the trapped woman's location. Naturally, because the man is known for killing beautiful women, the best thing to do is to send the most attractive woman the cops can find into the killer's brain in a skin-tight bodysuit. She plunges into the brain and encounters jumpscares, nonsensical imagery and disturbing scenes in an attempt to find the location, but when she does not return, it's up to our detective hero to save the day.
There are a lot of messed-up images in this picture: over the course of the film we see torture, gore, skeletons, sadistic devices, and various other images that clearly indicate that Tarsem wants to leave you feeling unsettled. There are idiotic quotes and scenes ("If we don't stop the killer, he's going to keep killing"- no s**t, sherlock) and stupid morals (in case you didn't know child abuse was bad) balanced out by strange imagery, and overall it leads to a messy film.
Is this what people consider "Art" film? If so, I hate to think of what they consider to be real art.
OVERALL RATING: 3/10
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If you're going to try to show intense scenes like child abuse, torture and murder, you'd BETTER do it right. The Cell does not. The imagery is so surreal and so difficult to comprehend that and art quality they would get across is lost in the sheer amount of graphic brutality and bizarre scenes that the film throws at us. Want to see an example of meaningful art in media? Try the old Hey Arnold episode "Pigeon Man". That gets the message across without complex imagery and shock value in under 15 minutes. That's right, a cartoon for children has more of my respect than a multimillion-dollar budget film.
Although I disagree with the imagery representative of the killer and his mind, I do appreciate the dedication put into the scenery and the intense scenes. You can see every little spot of blood on the intestines, if that's your kind of thing.
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