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Godsend - 4/30/04 - PG-13 - 102m
Greg Kinnear - Paul Duncan
Rebecca Romijn-Stamos - Jessie Duncan
Robert DeNiro - Richard Wells
Director: Nick Hamm
Written by: Mark Bomback
Studio: Lions Gate Films
Official
Website
JEF
Ugh, What a terrible movie. The day before seeing this movie, I was on the web looking for movie times, and one of the links was for reviews. The other critics were not kind, and it also had fan feedback, and they too were not kind reviews. But I still wanted to see it. I should have listened…
Storyline: Meet the happy little Duncan family, Adam the son (Cameron Bright), Paul the father (Greg Kinnear), and Jessie the mother (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos). They just celebrated Adam’s 8th birthday, and everything is just great. Then tragedy strikes… Adam is killed. (I’m not giving anything away here, as this was in the trailer). Jessie and Paul are still taking care of the funeral arrangements when they meet up with Dr. Richard Wells (Robert De Niro) who explains that he has discovered research where he thinks he can clone their son, and give Paul and Jessie a “second chance” to raise Adam. As the trailer also suggests, that once Adam crosses the 8-year mark of his death, things start to go wrong.
I kinda liked the concept of the film, even though it was a little far fetched. It basically relied on a theory that has been done before in many films, that deals with cellular memory. In a nutshell, any part of your body, liver, heart, arm, etc… has stored memories, and if transplanted into a new host, that person may remember past experiences from the donor’s previous life. After a quick glance on the web this morning, there are many claims to this being true, but all of the more scientific websites tend to “pooh-pooh” the idea, and say it is just coincidence. Regardless, this movie took this “cellular memory” concept one step further, and suggested that a DNA sample would also carry these past memories. Again, I kinda like the “sci-fi” concept of this, even if there is no real evidence for it being true. But the movie started to really take some liberties.
The acting? Well, I guess they all did well, but at times, my only complaint was that it may have been a little over the top. Cameron Bright was trying his darnedest to give a creepy stare, which sometimes worked, and sometimes didn’t. Greg Kinnear I think had the best performance, but because of the lame storyline, it was lost. De Niro was his usual self, which I happen to like. Rebecca was a little much for me to take.
At one point in the film, I said to myself, ‘stop being so critical… it’s just a film, sit back and enjoy it’ but then after about 15 minutes, I realized, no it was just a bad film.
At least the ending wasn’t apparent within the first 10 minutes, but it wasn’t long before I did see the twist.
I’m not sure why either, but there was something about the way the characters were set in the film, that I didn’t like. The lighting was just too perfect, or the surrounding settings were just too rich. This was supposed to be a local high school teacher, yet he’s living in a huge house, driving a big fancy SUV, etc… It was things like having fresh flowers on the table in some of the scenes that just made it all look too fake. Here they were supposed to be at a clinic/hospital, and it looked like Bill Gates house, including and indoor-running track. I also was getting tired of seeing the “clever” dual images in the cinematography that reinforced the “cloning” plot. For example, a lot of reflected images in a storefront window, or on a highly polished tabletop. At first it was clever, and then it was overdone. Maybe by this point where I was noticing these things, it was because I had lost interest in the film itself, and was just looking for things to complain about.
I think after the film, I realized it was an interesting concept but not enough of a story to make a 2-hour movie from. Perhaps it would have made a good article to read in a magazine.
Oh, one more thing… I apologize if there is a technical term for this, but I’m going to call it the “Boo-tactic”… this movie was relying heavily on this scare technique to the point where it was becoming comical. You know what I’m talking about right? Usually in those B-horror movies, where a person starts walking backwards in a dark forest, or spooky house, and just as they turn around something like a cat jumps out, or the phone rings, etc… I was getting so tired of the director (Nick Hamm) relying on this cheap thrill. Ok, I think I’ve bashed this film enough... Skip this movie.
Jef
