In The Cell’s spectacular opening scene, a woman in a flowing white garment gallops her sleek black horse over gigantic dunes of dark pink sand. She is Catherine Deane, a psychologist inside the mind of a young coma patient. But this dreamlike landscape pales in significance to the nightmarish world of serial killer Carl Stargher, the man she agrees to treat next.  

 

Deane (Jennifer Lopez) has mastered a new therapy technique which enables her to experience what is happening in another person’s unconscious mind. When Stargher (Vincent D’Onofrio) loses consciousness after a seizure, the innovative therapist must help FBI Agent Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn) find out where his latest victim is hidden before it’s too late. The only way to do so is by taking a dangerous trip inside the madman’s head.

 

Breaking new ground in terms of visual excitement, this sci-fi thriller overflows with incredibly wild images. (Some even caused me to worry about the sanity of its filmmakers.) When Deane enters Stargher’s imagination, she sees what he sees --- a grotesque museum of horrors. Bleached bodies turned into gruesome dolls, a horse cut into sections while standing in an art gallery, a huge dog shaking off water into a blood-filled bathtub, and heartbreaking child abuse scenes are among the disturbing sights she must confront.                   

 

In the meantime, another woman tries desperately to escape from the claustrophobic water torture cell where Stargher brings all his victims. Sequences showing this time-triggered deathtrap add considerably to the film’s chilling suspense. In order to help Deane discover where this terrifying cell is located, Novak decides to travel into Stargher’s mind also.

 

Plot and dialogue play second fiddle to The Cell's amazing visuals. Acting seems incidental here too. Lopez looks as beautiful as ever, especially when she becomes a glamorous Barbie Doll nun in one of her own fantasies. Still, her talent commanded the screen more dramatically in Selena. (If there was any justice in the show-biz world, that sensational performance should have earned her an Oscar.) In The Cell, Lopez's best scenes show her interacting tenderly with children, even with Stargher as a child. Vaughn (The Wedding Crashers) just looks concerned most of the time, but his sense of urgency helped bring me back to the real world in between those surrealistic mind-probing adventures.

 

In the movie's most challenging role, D'Onofrio (TV's Criminal Intent) uses more body language than words to create a monster serial killer. Besides playing Stargher, he assumes the man's alter egos. "Stargher has five different images of himself," D'Onofrio explains. "it's a schizophrenia that makes up his different desires and neuroses.The challenge for me as an actor was to make each side of Stargher unique and yet connected to the whole." Stargher may seen beyond redemption, but D"Onofrio endows this character with an animal  magnetism that kept me engaged during his frightening scenes.

 

Outstanding cinematography, special effects, costume design, set decoration, make-up, and background music contribute to the quality of this unique film. Helmed by first-time director Tarsem Singh, The Cell is not just another serial killer flick. Despite its horrific theme and graphic violence, it's a stunning work of art. 

        

(Released by New Line Cinema and rated “R” for bizarre violence, sexual images, nudity, and language.)