Cell 2 – DVD Review

The Film:

Director Tim Lacofano tries to capitalize off of a horror/thriller film that came out 9 years ago and had J-Lo in its lead and Vince Vaughn supporting. The Cell 2 has literally nobody in it you have heard of besides Frank Whaley (Pulp Fiction) and possibly Tessie Sanitago and Chris Bruno from television shows, and that is exactly what this film felt like: one long television show.

The three aforementioned actors and actress were the only thing that was keeping this film together, as they all did a nice job and were very believable in their roles, mostly due to their strong performances. The parts of the film that were really lacking were the extremely cheap CGI effects and set backgrounds, especially the scenes where Maya (Santiago) goes into the mind of the evil serial killer to try to find information and clues as to where the killer is taking his victims to torture them and, eventually, kill them.

The story pretty much is an extension of the plot from the original Cell, cops are using a woman that has a unique ability to tap into the minds of anyone who gives her something they have touched or had in their possession for any period of time. They do not delve into the scientific dynamics of this strange phenomena too much, but not knowing the mechanics behind this did not hurt the plot of the film any. The majority of the film goes back and forth between scenes of Maya (Santiago) mind-tapping the killer and cops trying to figure out who is doing all this.

One major plus for this film was the cinematography. The movie was filmed in Salt Lake City, Utah and there was some truly beautiful shots of landscapes, mountains, and scenery. Two points in the film were very fun to watch and they almost let me forget that this was a low-budget direct to video production and that was when they had a pretty lengthy car chase scene involving the Maya and Harris (Chris Bruno) going after a potential suspect. The scene was no French Connection car chase scene, but it was pretty good. Another scene that was directed well was a helicopter scene that involved Harris hanging very high up in the air, dangling from the chopper as it buzzed around. One could tell that these were not done with a green screen and actually were quite dangerous if not done correctly. If these scenes were not in the film, my opinion of it would be far less appealing.

As for gore, blood, or boobs the film truly was lacking in all three categories. There was one nice scene involving a little bit of upper nudity, but for a film that is about a serial killer, I thought that there would have been far more blood and at least some gore. If the filmmakers had thrown in more gore, it would have given the killer a little more credibility and added to his sinister intentions.

The DVD:

Audio/Video: The audio for this film was top-notch. There was great care into mixing the sounds and audio throughout the film. On Blu-ray, every thing was enhanced even further. Sound was extremely crisp, clear, and properly mixed. With so many scenes of large mountains, scenic landscape, and snow-capped peaks- the video quality was excellent. The shots of the helicopter flying overhead truly showed viewers how good the picture quality was and the end credits were scrolling by with scenic shots of what looked to be the beautiful Salt Lake City.

The Cell 2: Behind the Scenes: As for extras, the disc is pretty bare. All that was included on the disc was a short featurette that included Tessie Santiago, Chris Bruno, Frank Whaley, and Bart Johnson talking about the film and their characters. They had some of the computer effects artists talk about the techniques used for the shoddy special effects, the producers talk about certain aspects of how they came to make this film, and the sound technician quickly mention his trade and how he went about it. They do talk about how much money they didn’t have to make this film and director Tim Lacofano says a few sentences about his film. Nothing too special. They pretty much talked about how awesome everyone on the film was. It runs about 30 minute long.

Conclusion: If The Cell 2 was a television movie and was strictly a film about chasing down a serial killer, minus the part of the plot that involves heavy special effects due to the whole mind-intrusion techniques used by lead Tessie Santiago, the film may have been far more enjoyable because the characters and acting was pretty decent but the effects really put in to perspective just how little money they had to work with and it hurt the film. Do yourself a favor and look for these actors and actresses on the little screen and not in low-budget films that require far more attention and detail to the special effects that are prevalent throughout the film.

The Film: Rating:

The DVD: Rating: