Movies
[Review] Stephen King’s ‘Cell’ Is Another Forgettable Adaptation
10 years ago, Stephen King wrote Cell – a novel about mass consumption and portable “horde” culture in the digital age. It’s not one of his better works, but is considered pretty decent by fans. It’s just “okay” in my book. The novel definitely has its moments. And those moments are captured surprisingly well by director Tod Williams in the adaptation of the same name. Williams – who had the awful crutch to bear helming Paranormal Activity 2 – does an excellent job capturing King’s spirit – a blend of cynicism and hopefulness amidst horror. The problem is, it’s just not that interesting a King story to begin with.
Cell stars the always-reliable Samuel L. Jackson and recent DTV champion John Cusack. The latter has been in a ridiculous amount of pay-the-bills movies lately – Frozen Ground, Grand Piano, The Prince – while also delivering an Oscar-worthy performance in Love & Mercy. Seriously. Cusack is devastating in that one.
Here, Cusack stars as Clay Riddell, a graphic novelist trying to become the father he never was, connecting with his estranged wife. It’s a beautiful moment that kicks off Cell. As he flies into Boston’s Logan Airport, a cell signal goes out that turns everyone into a raging, murdering asshole. Luckily, Clay’s phone dies right before that electromagnetic pulse apocalypse. Timing is everything, pal.
He ventures out with gay MBTA subway driver Tom McCourt (Jackson) – one resourceful bastard – and Alice Maxwell (Isabelle Fuhrman). Also in the mix is Stacey Keach, a genuine god of genre films and The Simpsons (look him up). So across the board, the cast delivers. Cusack and Jackson are terrific. The problem is, the story itself is wicked flimsy.
Cell follows Clay, Tom, and Alice as they wander the outskirts of Boston – fighting against the signal people (essentially zombies with a hive-mind) and average Boston douchebags. It starts off really promising, with an awkwardly shot action sequence in Logan. Williams does not know how to film action. It’s an ugly sequence that utilizes shaky cam in the place of honest action.
Given the absurdity of the premise, you’d think Cell would be an entertaining ride. It’s not. It’s gratuitously grim and gloomy, with no real message to drive this misery home. Throughout the film, there are references to the unfortunately named “King of the Internet” – known as “The Raggedy Man in King’s book. He’s almost like a Freddie Krueger character who terrorizes people in their dreams. At one point, Clay and Tom meet the most Boston guy ever in the woods, who hasn’t slept a week because of the “Internet King.”
So where do all these references to “Internet King” and Clay’s sullen art lead? Nowhere. Cell closes out on a finale that will justifiably frustrate most. The story packs absolutely no punch and the solid stable of actors look bored for most of he film.
Why is it so hard to adapt a King novel? His monsters live in the mind, at the heart of America. Putting literal monsters on screen always dulls the impact.
Cell is available to rent now On Demand.
Universal has been having a hell of a time getting their Universal Monsters brand back on a better path in the wake of the Dark Universe collapsing, with four movies thus far released in the years since The Mummy attempted to get that interconnected universe off the ground.
First was Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, to date the only post-Mummy hit for the Universal Monsters, followed by The Last Voyage of the Demeter, Renfield, and now Abigail. The latter three films have attempted to bring Dracula back to the screen in fresh ways, but both Demeter and Renfield severely underperformed at the box office. And while Abigail is a far better vampire movie than those two, it’s unfortunately also struggling to turn a profit.
Where does the Universal Monsters brand go from here? The good news is that Universal and Blumhouse have once again enlisted the help of Leigh Whannell for their upcoming Wolf Man reboot, which is howling its way into theaters in January 2025. This is good news, of course, because Whannell’s Invisible Man was the best – and certainly most profitable – of the post-Dark Universe movies that Universal has been able to conjure up. The film ended its worldwide run with $144 million back in 2020, a massive win considering the $7 million budget.
Given the film was such a success, you may wondering why The Invisible Man 2 hasn’t come along in these past four years. But the wait for that sequel may be coming to an end.
Speaking with the Happy Sad Confused podcast this week, The Invisible Man star Elisabeth Moss notes that she feels “very good” about the sequel’s development at this point in time.
“Blumhouse and my production company [Love & Squalor Pictures]… we are closer than we have ever been to cracking it,” Moss updates this week. “And I feel very good about it.”
She adds, “We are very much intent on continuing that story.”
At the end of the 2020 movie, Elisabeth Moss’s heroine Cecilia Kass uses her stalker’s high-tech invisibility suit to kill him, now in possession of the technology that ruined her life.
Stay tuned for more on The Invisible Man 2 as we learn it.
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