Review of Cellular

Introduction

It`s new, it`s exciting, it`s about mobile phones. Oh.

One of 2004`s big popcorn films, Cellular stars a Nokia 6600 mobile phone, as well as Jason Statham (with another dodgy American accent, cf. The One), Kim Basinger and William H. Macy. Basinger is a biology teacher (this is important for 3 seconds during one scene) who is kidnapped by Statham`s bad guys. They want something of her husband`s and will stop at nothing to get it blah blah blah.

Only a predictably selfish young man can save her, with the aid of his wonderful new mobile phone. Will he be up to the challenge?

Video

We are greeted by a nice and wide 2.40 anamorphic transfer. It`s a pretty good transfer, as you would expect from such a modern film, and there`s no visible print damage or defects. It`s just that it sometimes looks a bit odd. Maybe too many other modern films have raised my expectations, but I thought it would look just a little bit better. Maybe I`m just being overly picky in my old age.....

Audio

A selection of soundtracks increasing in quality as you move from DD2.0 to DD5.1 and dts. I went for the dts and was not disappointed. As this is your popcorn blockbuster, it`s full of all the usual booms and bangs associated with villains, car chases and shoot outs.

On top of all this, the dialogue is always clear and crisp, apart from Jason Statham`s dodgy American accent. You just keep expecting him to stop talking stupidly and start talking like Turkish from Snatch. The soundtrack also thumps along in the right places to keep the pace up.

Features

First up we have the commentary track from director David Ellis as well as associate producer Tawny Ellis and assistant stunt coordinator Annie Ellis. Spot the pattern yet? They also call up a few other people on a mobile phone to comment at various points. How witty. It`s very dry and very dull and I just didn`t want to listen to it after a while.

Next we have three featurettes.

The first is "Celling Out" which is a brief history of the mobile phone. Ok, so the film is about phones, but why not tell us more about the film itself instead of one of the major stars (the phone). Maybe this was instead of an interview or biography of one of the human stars. You can watch this sort of thing on a cable channel.

"Dialing Up Cellular" is your usual making of feature, which has the usual interviews, clips from behind the scenes, clips from the film etc. It`s the usual extended trailer PR job though at the end of the day.

"Code of Silence: Inside the Rampart Scandal" is the other featurette that`s only mildly relevant as it covers a real life incident that inspired an important plot point. I can`t really say any more, and it`s not really that interesting anyway.

We also have deleted and alternate scenes, with or without commentary. There`s nothing really new here, most of it is still in the main feature.

Finally we have a classic "spoil the whole film in 2 minutes" trailer.

Conclusion

A mildly enjoyable extended mobile phone advert. The film is littered with inaccuracies and plot holes (arteries that pump blood at 30 litres a minute, ridiculously high quality video on mobile phones), but if you can switch off 90% of your brain then you should at least be entertained by a few good action set pieces (car chase, shoot out). Just don`t think too hard or you`ll be screaming at the screen.

Not even Kim Basinger can save this one, as she just spends most of the time whispering or whimpering. You won`t be bored watching the film as it moves with a nice pace, but you might just find that it`s not all that stimulating.

It`s all packaged up on a pretty good disc with good picture, great sound and some extras (although these aren`t really the best you`ve ever seen). Definitely worth switching off your brain and renting if you want a popcorn film.