Splice (2010)
Directed by Vincenzo Natali
Written by Vincenzo Natali, Doug Taylor
Starring Adrian Brody, Sarah Polley
Release Date June 4th, 2010
Published Published June 4th, 2010
I have had my share of odd experiences at the movies but the experience of the sci-fi flick “Splice” starring Sarah Polley and Oscar winner Adrien Brody ranks high on the weird meter. What begins as a moody and strangely fascinating sci-fi story about the morality and consequences of gene manipulations becomes, in its third act, a remarkable train wreck of a movie.
Clive (Brody) and Elsa (Polley) are two of the most brilliant genetic researchers in the country; their work has been featured on the front pages of national magazines. As we meet them they are creating a hybrid animal with no face or body parts but a mix of proteins with almost unlimited potential in the fight against disease.
With the success of the animal hybrid Elsa and Clive believe the next logical step is a human/animal hybrid. The pharmaceutical company funding the research shoots down that idea but if that rejection stopped Clive and Elsa we wouldn't have much of a movie. Clive and Elsa push forward and successfully combine animal and human. The result of this experiment is Dren, played by Abigail Chu as a child and Delphine Cheneac as a grown up. With her unique gene combo the transition from child to grown up is greatly accelerated.
The scenes of Dren's creation and growth are strangely fascinating and oddly humorous as Polley's Elsa becomes a surrogate mommy to Dren and treats it as one would a real human child. Brody's Clive is more reserved and skeptical, keeping a scientific distance. When this dynamic changes in the second half the tension amps up in surprising ways before finally reaching a second act climax that will leave jaws on the floor.
I will not spoil it for you. Really, you have to see it for yourself. The things that happen in the final act of “Splice” are plot wise, somewhat predictable. The outside the plot stuff, the character touches if you will, are where “Splice” goes from sci-fi weird to goofball, off the charts whacked.
The third act and the final moments of “Splice” are so completely idiotic and so easily foretold that on principle I can't recommend “Splice.” That said, there is a big part of me that not only wants you to see “Splice” but to also film your reaction as you see the developments in the final act. For all the problems of “Splice,” there is a ballsy quality that one cannot help but admire and marvel at.
“Splice” is not a good movie; it's far too predictable and the characters far too dopey for it to be any good. It is, however, bad in fun ways and shocking in the most memorable and disturbing ways. The critic in me says skip it but my twisted sense of humor says run to theaters and see this astonishingly odd movie.
