Style over substance. But what a style it is. "The Cell" is the internal version of most serial killer movies. Unfortunately, the story hardly supports the visuals.
Psychotherapist Catherine Deane (J-Lo) goes into her patients' dreams via artificial means to discover and help them over come their phobias and obsessions. A new patient whose fallen into a coma, is brought to her attention by the FBI. He's a serial killer who drowns his female victims then poses their bodies in grotesque scenarios like mannequins. Deane must enter the killer's mind and navigate through his sick fantasies in order to find and save his latest victim.
Director Tarsem Singh has incredible visions and set pieces for this production. Each dream sequence is like a nightmare-ish painting in motion, from the landscapes to the costumes.
But the plot suffers from lack of history of its characters. Stargher is the only person with a thorough background and he's the last person you want to care about. Without him, you basically have a movie that moves in the present tense only, which is a shame since the movie is so visually stunning and genuinely scary. Lopez is wasted but she's not that amazing an actress anyway, though she's as gorgeous as ever. And Vince Vaughn? I don't even know why he was chosen. This is not his forte and he overacts to boot. He tried too hard to become his character and it showed. Stick to comedy, Vince! Even so, this movie is so visually frightening, I still watch this movie with the lights on and can never fall asleep right away afterward.
