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The Cell | 2000 | R | - 6.10.8

Jennifer Lopez plays a child therapist who enters the mind of a comatose serial killer (Vincent D'Onofrio) in an attempt to find his last prisoner before he dies. Also with Vince Vaughn, Marianne Jean-Baptiste, Jake Weber, Dylan Baker, Tara Subkoff, Patrick Bauchau, Gerry Becker, James Gammon, Catherine Sutherland, Jake Thomas and Pruitt Taylor Vince. [1:47]

SEX/NUDITY 6 - Many of the scenes involving sex and nudity also involve violence and gore; please see the Violence/Gore category for more details. A woman nuzzles a man's cheeks and kisses him. A brief, crude reference to childbirth. A man slightly knocks open a woman's legs and tells a young boy to look at her crotch (no nudity is visible). In two scenes a nude corpse's bare breasts are visible (genitals are not visible) as it's lying on a table; we also see a few topless corpses throughout the film. We see a nude man's bare back, legs and chest; also, a man's bare arms and chest are visible as he's sitting in a bathtub. We see a number of female corpses with fake-looking, doll-like breasts (they're smooth with no nipples); we also see a woman with the same kind of large doll-like breasts wearing a thong. We see a woman wearing a dress shirt that covers nearly all of her panty-clad buttocks, a woman wearing a cleavage-revealing top in a few scenes, a few shirtless men, and a man wearing tiny underwear.

VIOLENCE/GORE 10 - Some of the scenes involving violence and gore also involve sex and nudity; please see the Sex/Nudity category for more details. Some of the scenes are supposed to be hallucinations, but still appear to be quite real. A person shoots another's foot and hands to the ground with arrows (blood spurts from the wounds), rips two hooks from the person's nipples (we see close-up, slow-motion shots of the flesh tearing and blood spurting), punches the person repeatedly, stabs the person's chest (we see a couple of close-ups of the bloody chest wound), and then twists the sword with a ripping sound (after being stabbed, the person spits up some blood; the person's face and chest, as well as the surrounding floor, are extremely bloody, and we see the extremely bloody person several times afterwards). While chained to a table, a person's stomach is pierced with large scissors (we see a close-up of this) and another person digs around in the bloody stomach wound and pulls out some of the small intestine; the intestine is wound around a line of barbed wire, which is twisted repeatedly so that more of the intestine is slowly pulled out of the stomach wound (it's all quite bloody, and the person yells in agony). A person is impaled (the sword point is seen sticking out of the person's chest) and screams loudly; we later see the person with a bloody shirt front. We hear a person in a large tank screaming as it fills with water, see a video of a person in the same situation (we also hear the person choking at the beginning stages of drowning), and see a woman nearly drown in a water-filled tank (the tank is shot repeatedly and hit with a pole before it breaks). A nude person hangs by metal chains attached to large metal hooks piercing the skin on the person's back and legs (the person is dangling over a corpse lying on a table); we see the hooks pulling and nearly ripping the skin, and some blood is visible on the person's shoulder. A boy pushes a woman to the floor, rescuing her from being vivisected; a horse is then vivisected and we see a close-up of a slice of its still-pulsating body. A person tells a story of a man who sliced open a child's torso and put her heart in a freezer. A man yells at a young boy and repeatedly beats him with a belt (we don't see the contact) as the boy cries; it's implied that a man burns a young boy with an iron (we hear the sizzle and the boy's cries); a man grabs a woman from behind and drops her to the ground (we see her legs flail and then stop moving as she unsuccessfully struggles to get away); a man with horns growing out of his head throws a woman to the ground and snaps a collar around her neck (she's later seen chained to a bed); a man grabs a boy; a woman slams another against a wall, knocking her out; and a person free-falls down a long chute but stops before hitting the bottom. A few times we see a person trapped in a glass tank screaming and beating the walls. We see a child being dunked into a river during a baptism and learn that the child felt like he was being drowned. A person appears to have a brief seizure a few times; in one scene the person stumbles around and is later seen lying face-down on the ground (we see the person's bare back and legs, with two lines of large metal hooks piercing the skin; in a later scene, we see scars on the person's back after the hooks have been removed). Many SWAT team members holding guns break into a house and eventually surround an unconscious person lying on the floor. Female corpses, some with very disfigured faces, are hooked up to various wires that make them move (some run, some gesture, one is seen in a dentist's chair, etc.); they almost look like dolls. We see a topless corpse in a blood-filled bath tub for awhile (a person sitting by the tub wearing gloves apparently "operated" on the corpse, and from a distance we see the person throw what might be a small body part or surgical instrument into a bloody bowl). A corpse floating in a water-filled tank suddenly convulses a bit, then we see a close-up of its face and blank eyes; also, we see a close-up of a corpse's white face as it's being pulled out of a water-filled tub. In a morgue we see a topless corpse's chest with lots of stitches in it, obviously post-autopsy. We see a close-up of a corpse's face with some purple marks and flies buzzing on it (the rest of the corpse is covered in a plastic bag). We briefly see close-up photos of corpses' faces and body parts hanging on a bulletin board. A child has bloody wounds as if he had been stabbed. A person has very bloody hands; a person's hand is bloody after hugging a person with a bloody back wound; a dog standing in a room with a bloody floor shakes blood from its fur; a little blood drips into a vial; and single drops of blood fall on clothing, plants, and other things. Twice, a boy's face briefly morphs into a somewhat frightening seal/human face. A person stands in a bowl of water that appears to have a snake swimming in it; also, a tarantula and some bugs crawl on a boy.

LANGUAGE 8 - About 20 F-words, a few anatomical references, some scatological references, a few mild obscenities, a couple of religious obscenities, a few insults, and some name-calling.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Serial killings and killers, torture, schizophrenia, child abuse/molestation, misogyny, comas, telepathy, scientific experiments, the FBI, redemption, marijuana use.

MESSAGE - We're driven by a need to redeem ourselves. Never stop trying to save those who need to be rescued.

(Note: The following scene does not fall within any of the regular categories but could be objectionable to some viewers: A woman dressed as the Virgin Mary baptizes a child with the implication that she has saved his soul and forgiven his sins.)

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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