So what did I think I’d get out of it “Splice” — the movie about a biotech experiment gone awry? Was it that I thought this lab-manufactured creature was good for a summer scare? Or that it would be an escape from everything on the mind?
True, I don’t normally see many of these kinds of flicks. But my spouse helped narrow it down among choices and I thought it might be fun to be scared with some alien type creature or a test-tube deviant. The local newspaper gave it 4 out of 5 stars. I repeat 4 out of 5 stars. And after all, hadn’t I seen and liked the sci-fi movie “District 9” with the prawn-like creatures forced to live in slum conditions on Earth? I could handle seeing the prawns!
I was aware too that the talented Canadian actress/director Sarah Polley was in “Splice”; she had been heralded as far back as 1997 for her performance in “The Sweet Hereafter” and even directed Julie Christie(!) in 2006’s “Away From Her” (yes that Julie, the one and only LAR-a from “Docter Zhivago”). Both Polley’s films are sad along with her other tear-jerker film “The Secret Life of Words” with Tim Robbins in 2005. Good luck seeing that without a Kleenex. But alas, what held her to this DNA scare flick? Wasn’t she Oscar material? I didn’t realize Adrian Brody was in it, too. I haven’t been moved by a performance of his since 2002’s “The Pianist.”
But here they both were in “Splice,” playing a scientist couple who go over the bio-ethical line to make a part-human, part-creature species in the race to solve diseases. They and viewers should know better! It’s no use! The scientific egos and calamities! The lab concoction too often than naught goes amiss or falls on the floor. Then all hell breaks loose. Didn’t they see “The Fly” from 1986? … where Jeff Goldbloom grows some mean back hairs and starts to buzz after dabbling around on a science experiment. Apparently they didn’t because Dren, their beloved spliced DNA creature, made in secrecy, sends them a bit over the edge. Dren, Dren, Oh Dren …. !
But this movie lacks opportunities of intrigue and suspense. More disturbing and creepy than truly scary and riveting, “Splice” throws together a little bit of everything: gils, wings, tails, stingers, co-mingling species and biotech companies with nefarious aspirations, even a sequel tie-in; it’s a slippery ride but comes off a bit too loopy without enough spine.
