6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.2 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
A random wrong number on his cell phone sends a young man into a high-stakes race against time to save a woman’s life. With no knowledge of Jessica Martin other than her hushed, panicked voice on the other end of the tenuous cell phone connection, Ryan is quickly thrown into a world of deception and murder on his frantic search to find and save her.
Starring: Kim Basinger, Chris Evans, Jason Statham, Eric Christian Olsen, Matt McColmThriller | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Action | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 16-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
Portuguese: Dolby Digital 2.0
English SDH, Spanish, Portuguese
25GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.0 | |
Audio | 4.0 | |
Extras | 3.5 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
Cellular has been called "the same film" as Phone Booth, since both involve a telephone call that has to be kept going or someone will die. Both scripts sprang from the inventively twisted brain of Larry Cohen, who first conceived the notion as a plot for Alfred Hitchcock's TV show, but that was long before pocketsized phones transformed life as we know it. By the time Phone Booth appeared in 2003, a special prologue had to be included explaining why the titular payphone was still standing in Times Square for Colin Farrell to answer. Cellular needed no such explanation. The idea that a random individual could get stuck on a call that would send him careening across a city in a whirlwind of kidnapping, intrigue and murder of which he knows nothing is easily conceivable in today's world of 24/7 connectivity. (Indeed, you have to wonder whether Cohen is working on a third installment called Texting for Your Life.) The point gets a comic underline late in the film, when one of the villain's henchmen is ordered to scan the crowd at the Santa Monica Pier looking for "the one on the cell phone", and you know what he'll see even before the editor cuts to the reverse shot of the crowd: a mob of people in beach attire, every one of them with hand held firmly to ear. Cohen's original script for Cellular was set in Boston, but it was rewritten by Chris Morgan when the producers decided to relocate the story to Los Angeles. (Morgan now writes the Fast and Furious franchise and was one of the screenwriters of Wanted.) For directing duties, New Line hired David R. Ellis, the veteran stunt coordinator and second unit director who had just performed so proficiently on Final Destination 2 . Here working with a vastly superior script and a strong cast including Oscar winner Kim Basinger and the always reliable William H. Macy, Ellis drew on his connections in the stunt community to fill the frame with bigger and more elaborate stunts than one normally sees in a modestly budgeted film. The result is an efficient little thriller that has held up well and plays even better on Blu-ray.
Director Ellis worked with his usual cinematographer, Gary Capo, who shot Final Destination 2 for him and has done most of his second unit work. Capo provided a cheerful, sun-drenched Los Angeles that contrasted sharply with the dark deeds happening in Jessica Martin's attic prison and over Ryan's cell phone connection. The image on Warner/New Line's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray ably reproduces Capo's photography with plenty of fine detail (which will be much appreciated by fans of beach scenes crowded with scantily clad women), a bright, clear image, excellent contrast that is never overblown, black levels that look accurate in the few sequences shot in dark interiors, and a fine but natural grain pattern that appears undisturbed by digital tinkering or filtering. Colors are varied and bright, because nothing in Cellular's L.A. is ever dark or somber. There's a lot of quick action in Cellular, but the film only runs 94 minutes, and with most of the extras in standard definition, a BD-25 accommodates the film easily without compression-related issues.
Cellular's DTS-HD MA 5.1 mix features an active but not bombastic mix, as cars whiz by on roads and freeways, crowds interact at the beach, in a bank and at the airport, and a few well-staged scenes of vehicular mayhem crunch metal and glass all around. There's also a collapsing shed that produces some effective sonics. A few effects demonstrate the depth of the bass extension, notably an impact that comes out of nowhere and is designed to catch everyone off-guard, viewers and characters alike. The dialogue is clear, except for instances where a fading signal threatens to cut off the call between Jessica and Ryan. The nicely crafted score by John Ottman, which has familiar ringtones subtly blended into the mix, is effectively reproduced.
Although Cellular wasn't a big success, it is rightly considered the breakout film for Chris Evans, who had until then been limited to dumb teen roles in disposable fare like Not Another Teen Movie. Cellular let Evans play an (almost) adult, and it thereby paved the way for roles in the comic franchises that have since made him famous, i.e., the Fantastic Four films and the Captain America/Avengers series. The film itself deserves a second look. It's well-constructed, professionally made and a refreshing change from thrillers that depend on arbitrary "twists". Instead, Cellular works by creating a genuine sense of jeopardy and putting credible obstacles in the paths of those trying to help. That kind of simple pleasure is fast becoming an endangered species. Highly recommended.
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