The Cell

The Cell - 8-18-00: From a purely movie standpoint, the movie was actually better then the previews and trailer looked. There was obviously some editing done though because the voice over that Jake does for the theatre trailer is no where in existence in the movie. A picture of Vince Vaughn looking at the comatose Stargher [D'Onofrio] that I've seen in magazines was not in the movie either. I saw where it should have been. Roger Ebert and his pal of the day loved the movie. Kenneth Turan of the LA Times thought it had too much gratuitous violence. The movie, to me, was somewhere inbetween, probably closer to Ebert's idea. I didn't find any of the violence gratuitous. I thought it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The movie was well edited and the abstract ideas that went into the picture were well done. Jennifer Lopez and Vincent D'Onofrio were really the key characters and they both did very good jobs. What about Jake?! you scream? Well, he was incredibly cute. The dimple in his chin was very prominent, his hair was great - dark brown underneath with blond streaks, loved it. Make up was excellent. Okay, that's vapid. Jake's performance was very good. Somehow he brought a little something 'else' to this character. It wasn't like Drew from 'Meet Joe Black', although Gordon Ramsey was sort of a bit pissy. He didn't act like any of the other FBI characters around. I was just disappointed that there wasn't more of him. I was able to read the script as it was originally done by the writer and there was more gallows humour between him and Vaugn's character. They are, after all, partners. You would have thought that they were just thrown together for this assignment. And there must have been more of that comaraderie between the two that was filmed but edited out if only because Jake made reference to 'humour' on The Cell website. The only evidence of that was Vaughn teasing Jake because he had fallen asleep on a table in a room where they were analyzing data. I thought I could hear rhythmic snoring in the background but I wasn't sure until the camera panned down. That was cute. But Jake's character wasn't amused by the joke. Vaughn told him he didn't want to disturb him because he was cute when he got that look on his face and he gave a little wink. The way the character was initially written, he would have had a smart-ass retort. His hair cut was interesting as it was sort of long on top and had more sideburns then normal. But I thought it was cute so I'm not complaining. There was more of his character towards the beginning. Also, there was no scene with his character questioning Vaughn's character about going 'in' with Lopez and D'Onofrio. Nada. That didn't fit right. And he seemed to think nothing of them relying on Lopez and the high tech gear. That too doesn't sound right. Jake's comment on the official website was that his character wanted to catch the killer, he just wasn't sure that that was the way to go about it. And his character didn't go with Vaughn when he went running out to find the last victim, he stayed back at the lab. Well, I suppose if Lopez' character had come up with something new, someone had to be there. And there was no reference by the scientists to what had occurred at the end either. I won't give it away but I thought they would say something. I will say that I understand how Lopez' character was able to 'connect' with the bad guy. So, not a bad movie but for the lack of Jake. He and Vaughn actually demonstrated a little more comaraderie at the very end. Wow. He's better looking then Vaughn. I will say that Vaughn must be very, very tall because I've never seen anyone make Jake look small. When the two stood up straight, Jake looked short and he's not. Too bad XFiles didn't choose Jake to replace Duchovny, he would have been one cute special agent because he certainly was in this movie and he would probably do a better job then that guy they chose.