Splice B Movies With Big Budgets
3 Out of 5 Stars
This movie is such a super-collided atomic mess that it us hard to rate "Splice" with just a single star for how endearingly awful it is; and for that reason, it's almost tempting to give it five stars for being such a stunning screw-up. Obviously, someone had high-hopes for "Splice;" by casting Oscar winner Adrian Brody and handing it to up and coming director Vincenzo Natali (best known for cult science-fiction classic "The Cube"), "Splice" had a high concept and old fashioned B-Movie science fiction plot going for it. Brody and co-star Sarah Polley are the scientists who decide to ignore all the rules and go against those stuffy conventions that they get the scientific breakthrough they wanted. The bad news is: they get the scientific breakthrough they wanted.
Yes, that's right. These ever so hip scientists (Brody wanders the lab with ironic t-shirts, there's Anime artwork in the couple's apartment) are genius DNA specialists that somehow match human DNA with amphibians, scorpions, birds and who knows what else to create Dren, which happens to be Nerd spelled backward. Like most science fiction monsters, Dren grows at a ridiculously fast pace, has super-human intelligence, childlike behavior and not much by way of moral turpitude. Of course, Brody and Polley soon lose all scientific objectivity regarding Dren and fall in love with their little monster, and that's when things go horribly wrong.
While this might seem like boiler-plate science-fiction, "Splice" may be the first hipster Science Fiction movie. The best sci-fi/suspense/horror works when your monster somehow is an allegory for whatever the zeitgeist of the world is at the moment. "Splice" works that angle in that "Dren" begs us to consider what nasty creatures we may create if we start messing with Mother Nature, but soon starts going for new levels of irony. Before you know it, "Splice" is whipping questions of gender identity, circumcision, lust, love, parenting, rape and finally, the usual evil corporation profit mongers. With ever upping of the ante, as a viewer, you're left to wonder "did they really just go there?" The answer is yes, and the film just keeps on going. The final third of the movie is such a mess that you feel like you're watching the train wreck. It's not wretchedly bad (for that, you need "Alien Vs Predator" or "Battlefield Earth"), but "Splice" - which borrows so much from the likes of "Species," "Alien," "Prophecy" and even "Rosemary's Baby" that you may feel a bit of deja vu - will still leave you stunned.
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