Splice

I watched Splice with my buddy a couple of days ago. Originally, when the flick came out, I wasn’t too keen on it. But after reading some reviews (and, I must admit, a strong desire to get out of my house), I decided to check it out.

You know what? It’s not that bad. As a matter of fact, it’s good.

Why?It’s weird, first and foremost. With immediate hindsight, I realized it’s a pretty decent and effective mixture of equal parts science fiction, horror, and suspense. Yes, it has it’s faults, some pretty glaring. But me and my friend chuckled out loud and made fun of them as we caught them. If you can forgive the movie its weaknesses, it’s a great film.



Hmm. Let’s see if I can summarize the plot in a single sentence that wouldn’t be red-flagged by a grammar school grammarian as “run-on.” How ’bout:

(inhale)

Geneticist Adrien Brody and his significant other go behind their employers’ backs to illegally to bring a new genetically modified human-hybrid creature to maturity resulting in unforeseen moral dilemmas, catastrophe, mayhem, and death.

(hyperventilate)

Pretty good summation, I’d say.

Strong points:

The special effects, particularly the CGI, were satisfyingly convincing. That goes a long way with me. The critter mannerisms, behavioral patterns, biological development – all creepily authentic. There’s a great plot twist at the end that was nicely foreshadowed midway through – see if you can pick it up. I didn’t, so I give the filmmakers props for that. Finally, and boy do I hate to say this, but I liked Adrien Brody in this flick.

The not-so-strong points:

Primarily Brody’s chick. She suffers from a chronic case of horror movie dumbth. Every decision she makes – and she wears the pants in their relationship – every single one is ethically wrong and usually leads deeper and deeper down the path of no return. Think she’s responsible for at least three or four character deaths.

Splice also has the distinction of containing one of the most weirdest scenes I have ever seen (now a list of that would make a good blog post). Those of you who have seen it know what I’m talking about; for those who haven’t, suffice it to say it involves Brody and the hybrid doing a Patrick Swayze-Demi Moore Ghost imitation. The expression on my face during was probably reminiscent of Butthead watching a Kip Winger video.

But if I had to come up with some sort of ratio of good to bad, it’d probably be along the lines of 90 / 10 or 80 / 20. I liked it more than my friend did, but we both came to the conclusion that Splice is more Species and Alien than The Thing and Aliens.

I’ma gonna be generous, and give it an A-minus. I enjoyed it.