The Modern Prometheus, or Dr. Splice-enstein

This weekend, the horror.....esque movie Splice opened. Originally, what I had seen of the trailers and such didn't really set my interest afire. It looked liked your pretty conventional Frankenstein tale, though juiced with fancy visual effects. But then reviews started coming over the past week, and the consensus seemed to be that it was actually pretty good. I decided to give it a whirl.

It is indeed a pretty straight up Frankenstein tale, though in this case the "Dr. Frankenstein" is actually a married couple of ambitious bio-engineers. After a series of breakthroughs splicing genes from different animals together to create unique, blob-like creatures, they want to try their technique out on a part-human creation... but must do so in secret, as they do not have the sanction of their corporate bankrollers. Maybe-misunderstood, maybe-dangerous monstrosity ensues.

The work in realizing all the creatures in this film, but especially the part human hybrid known as Dren, is really exceptional. Well, alright, maybe the amorphous blob creatures are a little too bizarre to seem credible, but Dren is really believable, both for the audience and for story purposes. She seems just human enough to be relatable, but just alien enough to be clearly something else.

There's decent acting in the movie, from Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley. They're both called on to do some pretty preposterous things in the film, but do their best to sell it. They hold off the "now wait a minutes" for longer than other actors might manage.

But they can't hold them off for long. Because there's a lot of "now wait a minutes" in this movie. The film carefully telegraphs where it's going, trying to play fair with the audience and not come up with unearned twists from out of nowhere. But it also creates this strange environment where you know what's going to happen about 30 minutes before it does, and you're thinking the whole time, "they're aren't really going to go there, though, are they?"

They do. And it's preposterous. I'm left to conclude that a lot of film reviewers still see it first as a visual medium and not as a storytelling medium. Yes, the movie looks fantastic, and is deserving of praise on that front. But the story is mostly a knock-off of things that have come before, and the parts that aren't are just impossible to swallow. In my book, Splice is a C-. If you're a real sci-fi thriller fan, you might want to catch it, but even then, I'd suggest waiting for DVD.