6.5 | / 10 |
Users | 4.3 | |
Reviewer | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.2 |
An FBI agent persuades a social worker, who is adept with a new experimental technology, to enter the mind of a comatose serial killer in order to learn where he has hidden his latest kidnap victim.
Starring: Jennifer Lopez, Colton James, Dylan Baker, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Gerry BeckerHorror | 100% |
Psychological thriller | 29% |
Thriller | 3% |
Sci-Fi | Insignificant |
Crime | Insignificant |
Drama | Insignificant |
Video codec: MPEG-4 AVC
Video resolution: 1080p
Aspect ratio: 2.40:1
Original aspect ratio: 2.39:1
English: DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 (48kHz, 24-bit)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
German: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Italian: Dolby Digital 5.1 (640 kbps)
Spanish: Dolby Digital 2.0
Japanese: Dolby Digital 5.1
Spanish 2.0=Latin; Japanese is hidden
English SDH, French, German SDH, Italian SDH, Japanese, Spanish, Dutch
50GB Blu-ray Disc
Single disc (1 BD)
Region free
Movie | 4.0 | |
Video | 4.5 | |
Audio | 4.5 | |
Extras | 4.0 | |
Overall | 4.0 |
You have to wonder whether The Cell's screenwriter, Mark Protosevich, had any inkling of what would happen to his first produced script when it landed in the hands of Indian-American prodigy Tarsem Singh, whose commercials and music videos received acclaim throughout the 1990s. Protosevich, who would go on to write the story for the first Thor film and to adapt the remake of Oldboy, had written a classic serial killer genre piece in the Thomas Harris vein of Manhunter, Red Dragon and The Silence of the Lambs, but there was an added twist. In The Cell, the investigators had to go beyond profiling and actually enter the killer's brain to save the latest victim. Similar story elements have been used in other contexts, including the 1984 film Dreamscape and even on innovative TV shows like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (Season 7: "Extreme Measures"). But when New Line gave Protosevich's script to Tarsem, the twist became the main attraction. Tarsem immediately grasped that deranged serial killers had worn out their novelty (which doesn't stop popular culture from churning them out faster than reality). What intrigued him was how the interior world of the mind freed much of The Cell's narrative from conventional logic. As he explains in the accompanying commentary, The Cell offered him an opportunity to do something you don't usually see in a police procedural: a grand operatic spectacle. Now, if the ad campaign for a film promised an opera, the box office would plummet. But a crime story filled with blood, terror, perverted sex and a beautiful female star—that's a movie people will pay to see. With a love-it-or-hate-it critical reception, The Cell was a box office success and also received an Oscar nomination for its memorably grotesque makeup.
The Cell was photographed by Paul Laufer, who, like director Tarsem, began in music videos and TV commercials and has continued to work in those fields ever since. Laufer is one of the principal participants on the Blu-ray's "production team" commentary track, where he discusses The Cell's photography in great detail, including the challenges of obtaining the desired colors via photochemical means in the era just before digital intermediates. Although some parts of The Cell were "digitized" (as Laufer puts it) to achieve various effects, the film was still completed by traditional means, so that a transfer for Blu-ray required scanning of a film element. The Cell was previously released on Blu-ray in 2009 by Canada's Alliance Atlantis; Blu-ray.com's review can be found here. Reliable sources at Warner have advised me that no 1080p master for the film existed at the time, and that the likely basis for Alliance's Blu-ray was a 1080i broadcast master that was upconverted. For this 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray release from Warner Home Video, a new 1080p master has been prepared by MPI, Warner's on-site facility. The results are exceptional. Tarsem and the production team used real, "in camera" elements wherever possible, so that the imagery would have weight and density and the actors would interact with real objects. The new Blu-ray captures this sense of reality with impressive depth and detail, enhanced by the clarity of the image and the vividness of the extreme color palette, whether it is the beautifully saturated reds of blood and various garments or the regal purples and golds favored by Carl Stargher's dream alter ego. The ghostly whites and blues associated with Stargher's victims are appropriately disconcerting, as are the various ashen qualities in his strange interior landscapes. In young Edward's mind, the reddish yellow of the vast sand dunes (filmed in Namibia) are striking in their hot intensity. Black levels and contrast are very good, and the film's grain pattern has been finely rendered. Warner has mastered The Cell at an average bitrate of 24.92, which could be better but is certainly very good, especially with careful allocation of bandwidth to the scenes that need it most. A quick comparison to the screenshots from our previous review will immediately reveal that the colors on this new version differ significantly. Warner's version is warmer overall, and has noticeably deeper reds and more lifelike fleshtones. As in all such situations, there is no reason to believe that the earlier version was accurate; indeed, it is far more likely that MPI would have had access to an answer print for reference than anyone associated with Alliance Atlantis. In any case, the difference is noted for the record.
Among the highlights of The Cell's original 5.1 track, encoded on Blu-ray in lossless DTS-HD MA, is Howard Shore's almost atonal score, which blends traditional orchestration with the "trance" music of the Master Musicians of Joujouka. The latter, with its distinctive blend of reed, pipe and percussion instruments provides an ideal accompaniment to the beautiful but alien landscapes of Edward's mind and also the sinister and vaguely oriental fantasies in which Stargher's mind indulges. Water (dripping, running, rushing, etc.) is a recurrent theme in The Cell's soundscape, for reasons that will quickly become obvious as the viewer grows acquainted with the world of Carl Stargher. Cars, helicopters, battering rams and other classic sounds of a police procedural also occur; at moments, Shore's score can't help but recall his earlier work for Se7en and The Silence of the Lambs. Dialogue is generally clear, except for certain utterances of Stargher's imperial alter ego, where the import is less what is said than the intensity with which he says it. Whenever speech occurs inside a mental landscape, voices boom, echo, fade and re-emerge, without regard to the laws of physics. The soundtrack's broad dynamic range and deep bass extension add to the sense that we have entered an alien landscape, even if it's all an illusion.
The extras have been ported over from New Line Video's 2004 "Platinum Series" DVD, with the exception of the "Interactive Brain Map and Empathy Test" and the DVD-ROM features (which included the screenplay).
In a pivotal conversation midway through The Cell, Lopez's Catherine and Vaughn's Novak debate whether it is possible to feel sympathy for Carl Stargher, given the childhood abuse that made the adult a merciless killer. The debate takes physical shape in the imaginary landscape through which Catherine chases Stargher, because he can appear there simultaneously as a victimized child and as the merciless, god-like figure invented by his adult self to compensate. The film's narrative continuously cuts through this duality with the pleas and cries of Stargher's victims, which are heard throughout the film, both live and on tape. Novak listens to these above all else. Tarsem's oft-expressed surprise at the degree to which his visuals disturbed viewers may suggest a lack of appreciation, in his debut feature, for the power of sound to supply emotional depth to images, or even to redefine them completely. The Cell dazzles and disturbs, and, however one views the story's outcome, it's a visceral experience that has now been given a Blu-ray treatment it deserves. Highly recommended.
2-Disc Special Edition
1980
Unrated Edition
2005
1991
2001
2011
Collector's Edition
1992
Collector's Edition
1983
2024
2014
2009
2007
1972
Unrated Edition
2006
Unrated Director's Cut
2007
Director's Cut
2018
Limited Edition | La sindrome di Stendhal
1996
Uncut
2019
2013
2009
2009