Splice (2009) Reviews

• What's With You People?

  alnora12272011-07-08

  Three fourths of these reviews hate the movie and whine about the idiot decisions of the scientists. Well of COURSE they made idiotic decisions! Where's the film if they made perfectly sane decisions? What kind of film is that? I actually thought the film was effing brilliant. I think it took a familiar premise and retooled it. The performances of Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley were exemplary, as always. I saw it for Sarah Polley as she is one of my favorite actors and one of the most underrated ones out there today. The actress that played Dren was also strong and had the perfect mix of human, alien, and innocence. The film addresses many scientific issues, but does so with a moral and emotional center. I like that the film doesn't pull punches and I like that there are consequences for the actions of the scientists. I thought the complex relationship of the couple and their creation was skillfully rendered and and excellently acted. Was it flawed? Sure. But it was also really kick ass and I'd see it again in a heartbeat. If you want your horror sci-fi movies neat and tidy and pedestrian this probably isn't for you.

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• Untruth In Advertising

  colinrgeorge2010-06-09

  "Splice" is a step in the right direction for horror. Every so often, I find myself pleasantly surprised by intentionally misadvertised entertainment, and writer/director Vincenzo Natali's genetic genre mash-up is the latest such example. From a marketing standpoint, its scare-tactics are clearly the easy sell, despite their comprising only a tiny percentage of its thematic intent. 'Hard sci-fi parenting metaphor' is, after all, a much tougher pitch. So expecting the tasteless creature feature from the trailer, "Splice" impressed me in its pursuit of a more complex emotional response than fear, and is successful in burrowing into your subconscious and picking at your psyche. It's a thinking man's B picture, which plays with the idea of morality on both a scientific and personal level. That it remains intellectually stimulating, even when the surface-area film dips into more traditionally hokey horror territory, is its greatest strength. What's so interesting about the story, in spite of what the trailer suggests, is that the creature artificially spawned by genetic engineers Clive and Elsa (Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley) is not an antagonist for the vast majority of the film. "Splice" isn't about a monster— It's about parenthood, and like with "Rosemary's Baby" or "Eraserhead," taking the associated fears and filtering them through a horror lens. Besides the tail and the pronounced facial cleft, test-tube baby Dren ('Nerd' backwards, heh) is essentially human, and a big part of "Splice's" inherent creepiness is that she's treated in turn as a subject and a child—Warmly received, but caged and abandoned for significant stretches of time. The realization of this character by French actress Delphine Chanéac, is another of the film's triumphs. Her general lack of dialogue sometimes forces the performance to rely a little too heavily on pantomime, but that we can both feel for and fear Dren simultaneously is a testament to the range of the actress. Perhaps it's because "Splice" nails the big performances and the big ideas, and because the gears turning behind the action are so consistently fluid, that it's all the more apparent when it stumbles over little things, like stilted motivation issues, and superfluous, grating secondary characters. Clive's brother (Brandon McGibbon) and boss (David Hewlett), for example, are flat placeholder roles that transparently progress the plot instead of enriching it. The triangular relationship between Clive, Elsa, and Dren, and its weird morphing emotional permutations, is what "Splice" is at its core. It is a film with very few characters, but every moment not spent on that central dynamic feels like time wasted. Still, that minor gripe is forgivable because "Splice" has two hugely important and rare qualities for modern horror—Original thought and fearless storytelling. The undercurrent of sexuality in the film, the internal dialogue on gender roles, is apparently one of the reasons no studio wanted to touch the script last year, but Natali's film is a cut above the rest precisely because it isn't afraid to make an audience uncomfortable. And it gets uncomfortable. "Splice" gets a lot of credit from me in the abstract. The concrete film doesn't quite live up to the incredible promise of the ideas behind it, but the very presence of those ideas is reaffirming to a degree, and that "Splice" received a wide domestic release is more encouraging still. Granted, it went on to perform below expectations at the box office, but was positioned against more breezy summer fare like "Shrek" and "Get Him to the Greek." The other possibility, and this suggests more consumer confidence than an ad man may be inclined to grant, is that "Splice's" scare-tactics aren't the easy sell. Maybe, like me, potential moviegoers just saw a trailer for another crappy horror movie instead of the interesting, offbeat experiment it is. It's Warner Brother's loss, and the audience's.

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• A likable but flawed sci-fi tale

  derekrankine2010-03-04

  Splice centres on two renowned young scientists (Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley) that are quasi-famous for successfully creating a new species of animal, a species with enormous pharmaceutical industry potential in the form of an ability to secrete profitable proteins. Despite a refusal by their company bosses to approve the next stage of the project, or anything that tampers with human DNA, their ambitions lead them to create a human-animal hybrid by combining human genes with those of the created species. This in turn leads to the creation of a new entity they name Dren, which they raise and attempt to study as a personal project concealed from their employers and colleagues. The story becomes highly engrossing as we follow the creature's development alongside that of the two scientists, who are in a relationship that becomes increasingly strained by a series of ethical and logistical dilemmas. The two central performances are well-judged, but the real star is Dren; or the CGI responsible for her creation, which is always convincing and solid at all stages of the creature's evolution. Vincenzo Natali's visually intense direction is also worth mentioning, and he clearly enjoys playing with a generous budget as compared with his previous features like Cube. This is, however, no modern masterpiece – the plot becomes predictable and contrived in the final third, the minor characters are little more than stereotypes (lax young brother, venal bosses) and the comedic elements of the film don't always sit comfortably with the horror aspects (there is, however, a notable exception in a hilarious scene towards the end). But these drawbacks are outweighed by the plus points, which makes Splice an enjoyable experience overall.

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• This film is horrible

  e_barker2010-06-13

  So Many things went wrong with this movie. One, a high-tech lab where there are NO cameras in the "secure" areas. I mean seriously are we supposed to believe that there were no cameras in the room with the multi-million dollar piece of equipment (fake uterus) was. Also, about that they break a multi-million dollar piece of equipment (smash it) and no one even asks what happened to it. They end up moving Dren into the basement (where no one goes), because yea maintenance and janitorial employees ever go into areas where maintenance and janitorial things are stored. OK, but those are minor things. How about we look at how Adrian Brody/Sarah Polley characters changed so quickly without explanation. Adrian Brody starts out thinking they need to kill Dren, then he thinks no we need to take care of it, and then near the end he says "the experiment's over we no longer have an obligation to the specimen" none of those transitions are ever explained they just happen. Sarah Polley's character does the same thing only in reverse. She starts off wanting to take care of Dren, then after Dren kills the cat she goes all kinds of crazy and wants to kill Dren and then she goes back to wanting to take care of Dren and then at the very end she wants to kill it again. Now, I guess we can say that she turns on Dren because of the abuse her mother did to her, although we are never told that not even a damn flash-back scene. Also, why did Adrian Brody have sex with Dren, it was not needed and in the scene right before that we see that she has no vagina (so we will call it Comic Book Magic. Next, they are supposed to be brilliant scientist, but they fail to notice that every single time there is a change in Dren she "Dies" for a bit. In the fake uterus machine she dies and then comes out, she gets drowned and dies and then develops the aqua-lungs. So they really don't see that come on. Finally, there is NO moral, I mean I guess the moral is go ahead and screw around with nature and when it kills everything that you love and rapes you, don't worry go ahead and screw around with nature some by selling your rape creature. I mean the sex scene was totally un-needed but the rape scene was just sick, and then on top of that to find out that she is just money hungry woman at the end. When she said "What's the worst thing that can happen", I totally wanted the camera to pan outside and see the whole city on fire. This movie was horrible, it was horribly written and horribly put together. I am sadden that people actually found this movie to be good.

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• An unbelievably cold and strange sci-fi flick which makes the cut because of it's sheer originality and well-crafted story

  kallepalli-sashank2011-06-21

  Well,I was amazed to be honest,literally amazed when I saw the trailer because it's been a while since I saw a movie made on the same lines as the cronenberg classics.The "man creates rare specimen-turned frankenstein" type of films was widely used in the 70's and most importantly the 80's and I kinda liked that category of sci-fi thrillers so it took me almost 8 months till I finally got my hands on it and thought I was gonna see a typical sci-fi thriller which takes you all the way,but I did'nt see what I expected... The plot revolves around two scientists,a couple,with a taste for doing the extraordinary and finally go for it when the try to splice human with animal DNA against the orders of their superiors which proves a touch costly when the result turns out to be an animal-human hybrid which looks all but friendly,initially it turns out to be friendly but as it grows...things change. My heart tells me to tell you more about the unexpected twists and turns the story takes but I just don't wanna spoil the thrills which I experienced and trust me it's something like never before... When I was seeing this movie I kinda had that perpetual deja vu maybe because it gave me that lurch in the stomach,that kind of feeling you had when you saw classics like "The Fly".. Well ,the reason why I am not giving it an 8 or a 9 is mainly because of the casting.. Sarah Polley was anything but impressive in her role,she lacked that energy or enthusiasm of a rogue scientist and was mostly irritating,Adrien Brody did'nt look like a circumspect rogue-scientist,in fact he had that Mr. Nice guy look all through the film but still impresses and I still feel that the role of adrein brody's brother in the film could have been given more screen time to add that moral edge to the movie.. Splice is a highly absorbing,engaging and even thrilling sci-fi flick which packs a good punch and carries a rare originality through it's story and screenplay.I could have given it an 8 or a 9 but for the casting.I still give it a decent 7/10.

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