SPLICE Movie Review

[Republished from the 2010 Sundance Film Festival]

Splice tells the story of Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley), two brilliant scientists who have created a new animal species that can lead the way to creating some new medication. Their next step and goal is to introduce human DNA into their experiment, which could help in finding the cure for numerous human diseases. Because the board financing the experiment refuses to go to the next step, Clive and Elsa decide to conduct the experiment in secret. They create a female animal/human creature, which they decide to study as it is aging really fast. Unfortunately, the creature turns out to be more than they bargained for, and they will have to deal with the consequences of their actions.

First of all, I really enjoyed the story a lot, it’s definitely a movie that will keep you thinking about it after it ends. It is so twisted and disturbing but so fascinating, that you can’t take your eyes off the screen.

The story forces you to think about the implications of what Clive and Elsa have created and how you would have behaved in a similar situation, which is a very possible future. I don’t want to give too much away, because part of what makes the movie great, is that you don’t know what coming next, but get ready for one sick ride. But there is also a lot of comic relief in the film, which makes it even that much better.

Sarah Polley and Adrien Brody are both really great in the film, and their portrayal definitely helps get into the movie. They each have such an interesting dynamic with the creature, it’s really gripping.

The visual effects in the movie were so impressive that you really believe this creature could really exist. At first it starts out kind of cute and more animal-like, then slowly evolves to look more and more human, which is quite disturbing on some level, and affects so much of what happens in the story.

The director, Vincenzo Natali has crafted a great story and brought it to life in a wonderful way. I had seen one of his previous films, Cube (which is amazing, you should see it if you haven’t yet), and to this day I still think about it because it was so weird and messed up, but so original and great, and I think I’m going to add Splice to that category.

Overall, I think you can probably tell that I really loved Splice and would definitely recommend you check it out. And one last note, even though Splice is classified as a horror film, I wouldn’t really consider it a typical horror film. I don’t like horror films (seriously, I’m a wimp when it comes to those) and I really loved Splice. That said, it is pretty disturbing, so that could be considered part of the horror genre. Still, I say go see it.