Potential that trips itself up at every turn

The Cell 2 (2009) (V)
Director: Tim Iacofano ("24" Season 3 and 4")
Tessie Santiago ... Maya Casteneda ("Queen of Swords")

4/10

Killer sounds like the villain from COBRA, the movie with Sylvester Stallone
I thought that would lend to the credibility of a straighjt to video flick,
but then the very next scene was pure gratuitous sex to show the killer is
watching her at her most vulnerable and I thought, really they had to make
sure nudity was in the first 15 minutes of the film? Wrong Turn 2 avoided
that and still achieved a modicum of success, mostly due to the slapstick
humour of Henry Rollins.

I have to admit the scene with the woman looking for her dog made me chuckle.
Even the killer had some funny lines which I chuckled at.

The premise on how Maya became psychic is actually quite creative, and far
more plausible than in the original film to be honest which is just the use
of rather science fiction left unexplained to make it all happen, like magic.

In the sequel, Maya becomes psychic because dying 6 times and being brought back
awakens dormant parts of her brain... sounds good to me.

What she seems to possess is not your general notion on what it is to be psychic
where one reads minds, but rather an ability called remote viewing.

The acting might be a bit one-dimensional but they make up for it by being serious
and passionate about their roles, especially Tessie Santiago and Chris Bruno,
they have a good sort of chemistry, I could imagine they're probably good friends
in real life, or at least create that impression rather well which actually helps
the film.


"We have to go in and save her, she's died six times, it's our last chance to save her."
Actually just because Maya survived 6 times doesn't mean this girl couldn't survive
much more, so that was rather silly writing, but I don't expect an oscar winning film,
so it doesn't bother me all that much.

The line of the killer near the end was so bad that it actually hurt his character by having
him talk way too much.

He undermined his own character which threw a spotlight on how shallow the character and
intentions truly were. If they had kept him more quiet he might have stayed a bit more
mysterious and scary.

Shattering her memories reminded me a little of what Ming (Max Von Sydow) does to ~
in the 1980 movie Flash Gordon.

In the final analysis, the killer was a moron who lacked the discipline to ever hav e done the
things his character was supposed to have done in terms of controlling one's minds, he
is so completely overwhelmed by a fear of the dark, which for all purposes is one of the major
obstacles to even beginning on a road of mental mastery such as he allegedly had complete
control over.

So you take bad acting, bad dialog, bad plot, villains who lack conviction, or purpose,
with a very simple Achilles heel, and you get a rather horroible straight to video
grasp for cash on the name of a popular movie from 10 years ago.

It wasn't a complete wash, the '24'esque directing definitely comes through, and I did watch til the end, but only because I was just passing the time.

And one more thing: If a girl stabs a gigantic knife through your hand, there's no way you'll
be gripping a knife as hard as you can to a woman's throat with that same hand in the very
next scene. And don't destroy what could be a fantastic finale with a line like:
Welcome to the Darkness, holy *beep* that's bad.





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