(2009) ***1/2Splice combined my personal most hated tropes--scientists shouldn't go tampering with God's creations and Big Pharma is evil--with my very favorite trope: parenting is a bitch.
I mean, one day the kid you created in your lab is adorableness incarnate, showing off how she can spell with Scrabble letters, and the next thing you know, she's a bat winged amphibious kangaroo she-demon who tries to rape your spouse. Moms, dads, am I right?
So, the synopsis: Clive and Elsa are two scientists who chafe at the restrictions of their research. They're only allowed to manufacture lumpy big slugs out of mixed up animal DNA for a pharmaceutical company. But these two are after the big game: splicing human genes together with a few other species to create some proteins that will save the world. Unfortunately, in spite of having awesome taste in furniture, music, and clothing, Clive and Elsa are the worst and most unethical scientists ever. Instead of synthesizing proteins that will make life saving drugs out of their new creation, they play mom and dad to it--which for Elsa means imitating her own abusive mother and getting all power trippy and wacko. And for Clive it means getting just a little too excited when the monster gets frisky.
Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley, and Delphine Chaneac are all great in this. Watching the family drama unfold made the film for me. These actors are amazing. The writing and the story? Meh. It'll do. The monster's feet, tail, and wings? Totally cool.
8 comments:
Beautiful summary! I loved the idea of this story but disliked the execution. My main criticism is that the "creature" is too silly looking and she makes silly sounds. I could never fully get lost in the story because I found her appearance to be so jarringly ridiculous (think Down Syndrome). Also, I thought the lighting for this film was poor, making everyone, especially Adrien Brody, homely. On the positive I thought the last 20 minutes or so rocked and as you noted the cast is excellent.
Yay Julie, great review. I have been eyeballing this film for awhile but have yet to watch it. Seems like it's worth a viewing. The creature really is weird looking.
This sentence is going to be tough to top this year:
"I mean, one day the kid you created in your lab is adorableness incarnate, showing off how she can spell with Scrabble letters, and the next thing you know, she's a bat winged amphibious kangaroo she-demon who tries to rape your spouse."
entertaining review, yucky images!
Yeah, I forgot to mention that the sciency stuff is really breezed over. It's like they flip a switch and a screen shows some numbers or some cells dividing, and they're like, "Oh Em Geee! The shit is gonna blow!" I'm all for cutting past the made up b.s., but this movie really did that way too much.
I was intrigued by this when it first came out, but due to some poor reviews I decided not to rush off to see it. I plan on checking it out soon though.
Nice review, Julie. I agree with Landshark about that line...so awesome.
I watched this with Julie and now have to somehow write something after she distilled the essence of the movie into one hilarious sentence.
I mean, just look at even just this part: "bat winged amphibious kangaroo she-demon."
Oh me oh my.
Splice is an awesome movie
Post a Comment