
Warner Bros. is opening it Friday, June 4th, in wide release, and I'm kind of surprised. This is the type of film that needs gradual exposure and nurturing, like 2008's The Hurt Locker, to reach its maximum audience.
The horror fans will turn out, of course, but the double-whammy of Get Him to the Greek and Shrek Forever After will surely stomp Splice. On a more optimistic note, I think it has a good chance to beat the second weeks of Prince of Persia and Sex and the City 2.
Adrian Brody and Sarah Polley play Clive and Elsa, a hotshot pair of genetic engineers who work for one of those imposing "big pharma"-type corporations. They've created some entirely new life forms by combining the DNA of various fauna, resulting in big, sluglike creatures whose cells can be harvested to benefit mankind, which pleases their employers...and their stockholders.

Since Elsa has used some of her own DNA in the formula (a fact Clive doesn't realize until later), Dren soon develops feminine characteristics that both scientists recognize and find themselves strangely attracted to for different reasons. With a set-up like this, you just know it isn't going to end well.

The lead characters are Clive and Elsa in a more-than-obvious nod to Bride of Frankenstein. All of the scenes with the lab equipment and procedures are hilarious and indecipherable, entering David Cronenberg's "biological horror" territory but with their own unique spin (a comparison that director Vincenzo Natali (Cube) had no problem with during the post-film Q&A, by the way), and events escalate into an "Oh, my God! Is this really going to happen?" scenario.
The negative reviews are coming from those who don't appreciate the outrageousness. The Washington Post and The San Francisco Chronicle slammed it without question, but Variety's Justin Chang seemed to get the humor in his January review during the film's original Sundance screening. The New York Times' Manohla Dargis also got it right, and even echoed my sentiments about the somewhat unsatisfying conclusion. Still, it's one of those films I have to think about and certainly see again before I pass a final judgment.

Here's a crappy photo I took with my phone of Natali speaking to the audience. I really have to get a better phone.
Natali plans to adapt a James Ballard novel as one of his next projects, and that goes back into Cronenberg territory. I love Crash (not the film that beat Brokeback Mountain at the Oscars). It'll be interesting to see what Natali does with the quirky material.
UPDATE
I'm already feeling better about the ending. When you take the film as a jet-black comedy (which I certainly did), the conclusion can be viewed as an over-the-top spoof of mainstream genre films that require much frantic action in the last fifteen minutes.
Splice shows that he has the same twisted mindset that Cronenberg possesses, and Cronenberg's adaptation of Ballard's Crash is the wildest of black comedies. I look forward to Natali's adaptation. Last month he talked to Fearnet about Splice and the upcoming projects.
Boy, the trailer is practically one scene from the entire movie...
1 comment:
Director and co-author Natali said that it took him fifteen years to get this film made, and if it had been produced back when the screenplay was first written, "Splice" would not have been as good a film. This was due to the development in the meantime of CGI, which is key to the effects. Wendy Finerman, the force behind "Forrest Gump", said the same of her picture, as it also took fifteen years to reach fruition, and many of the effects would not be as effective - and some not possible at all.
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