Cell (2016)

Film: I have read several articles about quantitive pedants claiming to cringe when they hear athletes claim that they ‘went out there and gave 110%’. I’ve actually read so many articles about it that I even stole the phrase ‘quantitive pedants’ from one of them, but I have to say, that as a percentage, I am 1,000,000% a zombie movie fan.

Let me tell you too, I don’t care what kind of zombies they are either! Fast, slow, virusy, no-more-room-in-hellish, metaphysical, green, grey, intelligent, stupid, whatever; I’ll take ‘em!

Another thing I love is Steven King movies! Not his books, mind, but his movies. I’m a huge fan of King’s ideas, but not his writing, which is something if you are a regular reader of this my reviews, will ready know as it is no secret.

Taking this into account, imagine my excitement when I discovered there was a zombie film based on a Stephen King novel! The only other zombie story I know of that King wrote was one published in the John Skipp and Craig Spektor edited anthology book The Book of the Dead which I liked so I had to give this one a go!

NB. There’s probably others but not being a reader of King’s work, I’m unaware of them.

Anyway, Cell starts with us being introduced to artist Clay Riddell (John Cusack), in an airport on the phone to his estranged wife, Sharon (Clark Sarullo) and son, Johnny (Ethan Andrew Casto) when the phone begins to drop out. Unfortunately for Clay, everyone in the airport is having trouble with their phones in the form of a signal which cause madness and sees them attacking each other without any regard for their own well-being.

Clay manages to escape the airport via the train station beneath, where he meets train driver Tom McCourt (Samuel L. Jackson) and the pair retreat to Clay’s apartment to decide on what their next move should be. They meet with another lost person there in the form of Alice (Isabelle Fuhrman) and the three decide to travel together to help Clay find Sharon and Johnny, along the way meeting many others in a similar people in a similar situation.

There is a another mystery though, in the form of an entity in a red hoodie who visits everyone in their dreams, but bizarrely has been visiting Clay for a while, and manifested in the form of a character he created… but what is it’s connection to the mobile phone call that causes people to turn into violent zombies?

There’s a lot of problems with this film. A lot. The first is its boring. There are a few moments of action in the form of the zombie attacks, but in between those scenes are just banal.

The next problem is with the creation of the characters. Cusack and Jackson play the exact same characters in every other film they’ve done since 1999 (I’m sure Cusack even has the same costume on that he’s worn for the past 20 years!). All the other characters come and go so quick you just don’t care about them, even to the point when one of them has a drawn out dying sequence you just want it over with quickly, and it’s a shame because there is such an interesting mix of cast members in it… even Stacy Keach! I did like Lloyd Kaufman’s special appearance though.

Thirdly are some of the special effects are just terrible. The make-up effects are fine, if not generic, but there are several CGI fire effects that look like they came from an episode of Home and Away.

To summarise, boring, wasted actors and crappy effects make for a big waste of my time. Avoid.

Score: *

Extras: No extras for YOU!

Score: 0

WISIA: Nope.

This review was done with the Australian Bluray release.