Ooooohhhh, for a deliciously obscene and horrifying time, you must see Splice. This movie will certainly only appeal to sci-fi geeks with a penchant for the deranged: exactly why I enjoyed it so much.Let's start with the cast. Sarah Polley--why isn't she in more movies? If anyone saw The Weight of Water with Sean Penn and Catherine McCormack (and a number of other fine actors, including Ciaran Hinds), you'll already know how subtly frightening she can be, well masked by an outward appearing vulnerability. Polley can just as convincingly portray a damsel in distress as a psychopathic killer, which makes her tantalizing. With characters she plays, you never know if you'll be shuddering in revulsion by the end of the film or crying in your beer. She's just awesome.And yeah, the same can be said for Adrien Brody. It's my opinion that after the amazing success he achieved at such a young age with The Pianist, Brody decided that he never wants to be typecast and has chosen a career path in quiet, sometimes bizarre, and usually thought-provoking roles. Did anyone see The Jacket? What a terrific film, but with so little exposure. Brody gives the same juicy, nuanced performance in every film he makes (alright, maybe not Predators), and adds more depth to any story.SPOILERS AHEAD, be warned.So, Splice. Ewww! You will be cringing from the first scene. The story revolves around Elsa and Clive, a pair of romantically involved biochemists whose work is gene/DNA splicing for a private corporation is the hope of the future. They've managed to create two living blobs that produce a protein that could potentially cure Parkinson's, Cancer, etc. But the pressure comes down from corporate and they're work is cut short before they can take it to the next level--the introduction of human DNA (the hard science in this film is a little ridiculous, but ignore it and you'll get into the characters). Not to be daunted, they decide to use their lab and run the experiment, ending up with a very strange human-bird(?) hybrid that grows into a full adult in fast forward.Chuckle factor here: their lab is called N.E.R.D., an acronym for Nucleic Experimental Research and Development. Teehee. Anyway, the only reason it's important is because they end up naming their "child" Dren in response to her ability to read and copy the word NERD from Elsa's tshirt.Dren becomes their surrogate "child" (yes, again with the quotes) because Elsa doesn't want to have a real child with Clive due to trauma she suffered at the hands of her looney mother when she was young. Since Dren is an illegal experiment, they are forced to hide her outside the lab at a remote farm where Elsa grew up.And things get weird, really weird. We learn that Elsa has used her own DNA in forming Dren, which is maybe not such a good idea because of her family history of mental illness. However, this also creates a weird sexual attraction for Clive. Trust me, your imagination alone will not take you where this film goes from here (if your imagination will take you where this film, I suggest a career in writing).So, let's see, we have: Science Fiction, Drama, Thriller, Suspense, Graphic Violence, and a little Soft Porn. What more could you want in a film? Regardless of the out-thereness of the story, it's really the statement this film makes about science and ethics that draws you in. It's a story about damaged people who fail to see their own flaws and perpetuate truly bizarre behavior out of supposed "objective scientific" motivations. It's not exactly dystopian, but it definitely forces you to think about the reality of any research done by humans. How can any science be perfect when the beings performing scientific studies are flawed?And there's a really cool twist at the end.If you watch it, tell me what you think.
