Bad science and cinemaBy John DeSando, WCBE's "It's Movie Time," "Cinema Classics," and "On the Marquee"
"You seek for knowledge and wisdom, as I once did; and I ardently hope that the gratification of your wishes may not be a serpent to sting you, as mine has been." Mary Shelley, Frankenstein
Thunder and lightning kept interrupting our evening screening of Splice, a sci-fi about genetic engineering not in the best interests of the human race. That storm reminded me of how much more atmosphere and dread Frankenstein had, phony electricity and all.
Clive (Adrien Brody) and Sarah Polley (Elsa, torturing me with reference to Elsa Lanchester playing Frankenstein's Bride), are bio-chemical team/ lovers who create a strange girl, Dren (that's "nerd" backwards), with a tail and apparently super model genes.
After this promising X-Files/Twilight Zone opening, the rest of the film goes nowhere but to clichesville, where hiding the child becomes the most activity, and the brother is on the verge of discovering the lab addition.
Then Clive does the nasty with the creation, an activity that brought audience guffaws the likes of which I hadn't heard yet this summer, even considering such basement comedies such as Take Him to the Greek. Adding to the absurdity is a lack of motivation for this act other than the odd lust.
So bad a climax (so to speak) is that moment, with Elsa discovering them to add to the melodrama, that the auxiliary lights in the theater came on as if Dr. Frankenstein himself were at the switch. But so far, the only highlight I've already mentioned; the rest is about trite struggles with corporate sponsors of the research and Elsa's change into a minor monster herself.
Only Adrien Brody seems unaffected, largely I suppose because he gets to wear cool, counterculture clothes, as opposed to the high-fashion of his real life outside film. Life? What am I talking about? This movie should be billed as a comedy.
John DeSando teaches film at Franklin University and co-hosts WCBE 90.5's It's Movie Time, Cinema Classics, and On the Marquee, which can be heard streaming at http://publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/ppr/index.shtml and on demand at http://www.publicbroadcasting.net/wcbe/arts.artsmain Contact him at JDeSando@Columbus.RR.com