Splice (2010)

Wonderfully offbeat film!

Overrated and overhyped

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

Inspired by James Whale's Frankenstein film and David Cronenberg's body horror films. Splice starts off promisingly and then goes off the rails.Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) are genetic scientists who created an artificial life spliced with various DNA. Two blob like creatures, one male, the other female are produced which are intended to produce artificial proteins. The scientists then go a step further in creating Dren (Delphine Chaneac) that has an accelerated life cycle but they seemingly have not thought through the ethical issues surrounding their experiment.Clive is reluctant to care for Dren, Elsa has a closer maternal bond with Dren. As Dren quickly grows older, her physical and emotional needs change. Despite looking human she has parts of other creatures such as a tail and wings.As the film is labelled as a horror film you can kind of figure the creature would go on a rampage at the end, however Clive's intimacy with Dren is too left field and far fetched especially as he scolds Elsa for betraying research principles. It has a pretty unconvincing ending which is unintentionally hilarious.

As hinted at via the lead characters' names (inspired by Colin CLIVE and ELSA Lanchester), "Splice" is basically just a 21st century update of the legendary "Frankenstein" tale. It's about scientists playing God and attempting to create new life without thinking about the possible consequences. The difference is of course that science and laboratories have evolved quite tremendously since Mary Shelley invented the immortal premise, and thus Boris Karloff's corpse has been replaced by microscopic bits of DNA and the resurrection process via lighting & thunderstorms has been replaced with a complicated splicing process that I don't even bother to understand. Call me old-fashioned, but this advanced and pseudo-intellectual kind of Sci-Fi is quite unappealing, pretentious and mostly boring. Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley – their mediocre performances are undoubtedly still the best thing about the whole film – form a brilliant couple of scientists specialized in DNA research. For their employer, a massive pharmaceutical company called N.E.R.D (ha ha!), they are supposed to mix and merge DNA from various animal species and create a brand new organism. They do this quite successfully; with the creation of a pair of blobby critters they name Fred and Ginger, But Elsa wants to go even further. She persuades Clive to continue their experiments and even add human DNA into the cocktail, with as result the "birth" of a humanoid that looks like a rodent with amphibious lungs and a split forehead. Dren, as they name her, rapidly grows into a curious female and it soon becomes very difficult to keep her under control and hidden for the outside world. In spite of the intellectual and relevant subject matter, "Splice" is a surprisingly dumb and highly implausible film. The first half is still absorbing and eventful, with a disastrous press conference as gory highlight, but then it suddenly turns into a stupid, tedious and inconceivable mess. I fail to believe that a vivid and boisterous creature like Dren can possibly be kept hidden in the basement of a mastodon company without being noticed, and that's just the least annoying thing of everything that doesn't make sense! The script suddenly comes up with a sub plot about Elsa's troubled childhood, but that remains vague and random. The couple also constantly changes their minds and roles. At first Clive is reluctant and wants to destroy Dren while Elsa treats her lovingly like she nurtured it in her own womb. Later on, however, it's Clive who protects Dren from Elsa who wants to kill it with a shovel. Make up your damn minds! If all this isn't laughable enough yet, Clive naturally also copulates with his hamster-faced abomination. Pretty much like Dren herself, "Splice" is quite an abomination and I can't say I'm too surprised because even his more acclaimed movies "Cube" and "Cypher" were terribly overrated.

its great virtue - to explore ancient basic fears of each of us. the theme of Dr. Frankenstein has a great illustration. and the strange beauty of story and images are the basic gift of a film . the fascination to the result of an experiment who could change everything is axis of one of the great problems of present.result - a special film. for the effort of Adrien Brody and for a story who mix the thriller and old Sci.- Fi. themes in decent manner. short, one of memorable films for the emotions and for the use of Gothic themes . and for the brilliant making of a modern fairy tale, creepy, seductive, mysterious. the sins - the use of sexuality as a ingredient too spicy, the mix of different subject, the strange metamorphose of Dren looking the right form, the tension who has as result an ambiguous and not real credible violence. short- a warning. useful. but not coherent in many scenes.

I have wanted to see this movie for a long time since I checked out a few of Vincenzo Natali's movies sometime before. I finally saw it today. I am not satisfied at all. What I saw was a movie which was confused about which tone to take, what direction to move and so on. First, the whole pretty boy scientist thing totally turned me off. I didn't really take these two seriously as brilliant scientists. But there are many other problems with the movie. Honestly speaking, the movie could have been a brilliant thought provoking sci fi(like say, Moon) or an action/horror/sci fi movie (like say, Species) or a trashy 80s style movie(like say, Humanoids from the deep). If the filmmakers were able to decide the path properly, it could have been happened. Instead it is too stupid to be a thought provoking sci fi. It is too slow to be an effective action horror movie. It has very few scenes of nudity or violence to be a trashy 80s style movie. The movie IMO meanders aimlessly and it drags quite a bit for the most part. Most of the themes in the movie were dealt with in superior sci fi films. And they were dealt with in better ways in those movies. It has too many clichés and the mad scientist trope, playing with nature stuff has been done to death now. This movie has not broken new ground in any way. Hell, to some extent, it reminded me of inferior films such as Species(which at least had copious nudity to compensate).Then there is the entertainment factor. In a movie with so much trash potential, the sex scenes are a huge disappointment. Maybe Vincenzo natali doesn't have the trashy sensibility to make such a movie. And where are the big twists, the snappy screenplay? It doesn't seem to be made by the same filmmaker of Cube or Cypher. The ending left me yawning. Is that the supposed shock ending?Maybe we should bring back Roger corman or someone like that to make such movies. Altogether I give it a 4/10.