New Line Cinema | 2009 | 94 mins | Not rated
Though advertised as a sequel to the 2000 Jennifer Lopez film The Cell, this direct to video sequel has nothing in common with its namesake. That’s if you don’t count the short, clumsy narration in the opening seconds, a cheap gadget strapped to star Tessie Santiago’s (likely cast for her similarity to Ms. Lopez) forehead and a few lingering rules of engagement. Though The Cell wasn’t what I would call a great film, at least it had had some impressive imagery, tension and an occasionally captivating look into the mind of a psychopath.
The Cell 2 is so different, I was left to wonder if Writers/producers Alex Barder, Rob Rinow, and Lawrence Silverstein were shopping an unrelated script around town when a shrewd executive, noticing the vaguest of connections, decided to turn their concept into a sequel for a cult favorite.
Maya Casteneda (Santiago), is a psychically gifted woman with a troubled past who assists the FBI in tracking down serial killers. As the film opens, she is helping them track down a serial killer dubbed “The Cusp.” The madman in question kills his victims, resuscitates them, and proceeds to kill them again and again, before ultimately cutting their hearts out. Maya is the only victim known to have escaped from The Cusp but his torture has inadvertently opened up pathways in her brain that allowed her to develop her extrasensory abilities. Trying to overcome her fears, Maya has to help a local sheriff (Chris Bruno) save The Cusp’s next victim (Amee Walden), deal with the cynicism of an arrogant FBI agent (Bart Johnson who, to his credit, seems to be the only actor who understands what sort of camptastic production he’s apart of) and explore The Cusp’s sadistic mind.
The Cell 2 is a truly terrible film. Truthfully, if I didn’t review films I would have turned this one off within fifteen minutes. This is one of those movies that is so terrible, the only fun thing to do is point out the cheesiness of it all. I will refrain from revealing the killer (though I’m sure any eight-year-old will figure it out in fifteen minutes). Watch a couple of dialogue heavy scenes involving the villain that will give you a laugh or two.
If you really want to watch The Cell 2, you could watch the film purely for its campy badness. The performance of Michael Flynn as the FBI Special Investigator is terrible. His is the type of stiff performance that was so effectively lampooned in films like Airplane and The Naked Gun. A moment of pure badness occurs late in the film when a character hits another character in the back with an axe. The camera angle allows viewers to see the rubber blade bending sideways on the victim’s back. The closing credits are intercut with a bunch of helicopter shots of the mountains for no discernible reason other than that they probably had a bunch of footage left over from the opening sequence. Easily three quarters of the shots have the shadow and/or the blades of the helicopter in-frame. An homage to The Shining, maybe? I tend to think that would be too clever but I guess we’ll never know and I doubt anyone will ever care. My guess is, The Cell 2 is going to have a long, lonely life on video store shelves.
The Cell 2 sports a passable 1080p/VC-1 transfer; an oversaturated presentation that no doubt renders its source to the satisfaction of its filmmakers. Colors are garish and syrupy: skintones alternate between flushed and bronzed, unchecked black levels frequently absorb detail and delineation is a joke. Still, it’s obvious that Daddy Day Camp cinematographer Geno Salvatori was aiming for just such an overbearing, migraine inducing palette. The rest of the picture rises and falls with the requisite limitations of a low budget, direct-to-video release. Detail is hit or miss — sharp one moment and spongy the next — and textures are often smeared by rampant noise reduction. Artifacts occasionally interrupt the proceedings. And a healthy application of post-production sharpening gives everything an artificial edginess that isn’t attractive. All things considered, The Cell 2 offers a decent enough high definition transfer.
Packaged with a Dolby TrueHD 5.1 surround track, dialogue is crisp and clear. Effects are too punchy, the musical score is poorly prioritized, and rear speaker activity is inconsistent and innocuous. LFE support is strong but unnaturally cumbersome; it lacks the fine-precision heft and fundamental oomph I’ve come to expect from a lossless audio track. Moreover, the sound designers favor volume boosting and normalization trickery over nuanced weight, accurate directionality, or rousing dynamics.
Mercifully, The Cell 2 has limited special features:
• The Cell 2: Behind the Scenes (30:00) EPK stuff. We are given a few glimpses into some technical aspects of the production including stunts, visual effects, and sound design as well as some brief discussions of how they tried to work within the constraints of the film’s modest budget. On-screen commentators include Director Tim Iacofano, actors Santiago, Johnson, Bruno, & Whaley, Producer/Writers Alex Barder and Lawrence Silverstein, Stunt Coordinator/2nd Unit Director Kathy Jarvis, Lead Visual Effects Artist Gregg Detrich, Lead Compositor Joe Russo, and Sound Designer Adam Johnston.
• BD-Live Enabled
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