. . . I did plenty of eye rolling, sighing in disbelief, and laughing in disgust through most of the movie.
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It figures we would eventually have to receive the torture of a film with a plot built around cellular phones. After all, cellular phones are the big rage, and nowadays it seems like everybody has one. At least in the film, you get a sense as though everyone on the planet owns a cellular phone. However, if you don´t own a cell phone, no need to worry because this movie is about as spoon-fed as it gets. Not to mention, get ready for some good old-fashioned American cheese.
"Cellular," a film directed by David Ellis and written by Larry Cohen and Chris Morgan, delivers one of the cheesiest stories I´ve seen in a long time. I think you all should know what´s coming. Yes, I´m going to have to give this movie a cheese spanking. Since it´s a film in English, I´ll stick with the fine cheddar family--mild, meaning fair and sharp; meaning unacceptably bad.
The first hunk of cheese will be a mild cheddar given to the plot itself. It was only obvious that Hollywood would have to stuff a movie down our throats based on one of the hottest-selling items since the birth of the I.T. Industry. And why not, we´ve had films with plots based around computers. Unfortunately, a lot of them didn´t work, and you would think that the fine people in and around Beverly Hills would have this figured out. But, no, it´s all about keeping that cash-cow producing mediocre hit after mediocre hit.
The plot is about a woman named Jessica (Kim Basinger) who is kidnapped by some ruthless bad guys and their leader Ethan (Jason Statham). Jessica is held hostage at their hideout, but what are they after? I´ll leave that for a surprise, even though it deserves its own slice of moldy, sharp cheddar. As Jessica is held in a dismal attic and taking frequent beatings from Ethan, she does her own repairs on a previously broken phone and attempts to call whomever she can get ahold of. You see, the buttons are broken and Jessica´s a smarty who knows the exact two wires to make the phone dial a call. (That scene alone deserved a big slice of Wisconsin´s finest sharp.) On Jessica´s second attempt, she makes a connection and introduces us to the plot´s hero, Ryan (Chris Evans). From there the plot is to find a way to rescue Jessica, but the only way this is possible is to stay on the phone. And it is here that the real cheese begins, as we are thrown into one cliché after the next. In this regard, I thought the film was made from the same batter as the movie "Speed." If you remember, in "Speed" the bus could not slow down below fifty m.p.h., or it was boom! In "Cellular" it´s don´t hang up, don´t lose the connection, don´t let the battery run low, or the girl and her family will die. In other words, it´s a common plot that contains a race-with-time element that has already been done in several ways and fashions. The plot gets the mild cheese award because it almost looks original on the outside, but on the inside, it´s California´s best cheddar.
The second hunk of cheese will be a fine, sharp cheddar awarded to the police station scene. Here, Ryan almost gets a policeman, Officer Mooney (William H. Macy), to help him rescue his damsel in distress. Instead, a fight breaks out on the main floor, and officer Mooney sends Ryan packing his problem to the fourth floor. Mooney´s part in the plot thickens later on as the soon-to-be-retired officer begins snooping around. For now, Officer Mooney is simply too occupied to give a care in the world about Ryan´s kidnapping problem. Nevertheless, as Ryan jaunts his way to the fourth floor, he begins to lose his phone signal. He then turns around, heads back to the main floor and out the police station. Granted, Ryan was under Jessica´s leash every second that it´s a wonder she didn´t have the guy picking up her dry cleaning. Regardless of the intensity the director was trying to build up, it is still no excuse that out of an entire L.A. police station there was not one cop, other than Officer Mooney, on any given floor that could have helped him. And that is why this scene gets a good California, sharp cheddar. I´ll tell you what folks, if Hollywood is out to make us all look stupid, which they are, then it has to be true that the planet Earth is an insane asylum for the galaxy.
Finally, third on my list gets yet another fine, sharp cheddar. This would be the scene where Ryan is about to have his phone battery die as he is driving a stolen security car. As it is, he just so happens to be getting the same signal as a loudmouth attorney, in a Porsche of all cars, driving next to him. Of course, Ryan takes the guy´s car and cell phone. Yes, believe it or not, it takes two cell phones to complete the plot, giving it some of the worst cheese I´ve seen in years. First of all, the chances of these things happening are remote, and second of all, the car he steals just happens to be a Porsche? When will this madness end? So, without further ado, Mr. Ellis, Mr. Morgan and Mr. Cohen, come on down and get your California, sharp cheddar award. After all, you guys deserve it for giving us, and probably one for the record books, one of the cheesiest plot twists since "Who Shot J.R?"
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[release]13581[/release]