Splice (2009)

Genre : SF
Country : Canada/France

Cast :
Sarah Polley : Elsa Kast
Adrien Brody : Clive Nicoli
Delphine Chanéac : Dren

Director :
Vincenzo Natali

Summary

Two young scientists are told they have to stop their groundbreaking project, namely the creation of a new life form by combining different animal DNA's. They decide to continue their work secretly and develop a new strategy by using human DNA.

My opinion

Why the fuck did you make her in the first place? Huh? For the betterment of mankind? You never wanted a normal child because you were afraid of losing control.

The premise of this film seemed ideal to make a sort of variant on the "Frankenstein"-theme. The creation could well be a success, but the consequences and the non-calculated risks would again provide abuses and lead to probably a not so happy end. Eventually this movie began in a highly intriguing way with the manipulating of DNA. This allowed the two top scientists, Clive Nicoli and Elsa Kast, to develop a new organism from which they could fabricate certain products that could cause a revolution in the fight against all kinds of deadly diseases and disorders.

Obviously there were some ethical issues involved and after a while it was succinctly made clear that the entire project was put in the freezer. Well ! That's how I understood it anyway and afterwards I was surprised to see that there was a press conference with an introduction of the two new lifeforms in a room full of press people and fellow scientists. The lifeforms looked like misshapen hunks of meat and resembled giant wriggling meat maggots. There was no comparison with the existing species from which they had taken the DNA. One of these two hunks of meat also underwent a sexchange and thus a painful fight was shown where blood and slime residue got thrown all over the front row. Actually that was the only gore part of the complete movie.

The two top scientists refuse to stop with the project and they begin their own private experiment by using human DNA. And that's where the movie takes an incomprehensible and terribly wrong turn. The creature is born in an artificial womb where Elsa gets attacked as she tries to save the unborn and then she goes into a sort of epileptic condition. Why that was and what actually happened is unexplained. The creature looks pretty realistic in its early stages and more than once it made me think back of other SF movies with cheeky abnormal creatures in labs. Comparing "Alien" with this movie however is a bit too far. But eventually it grows out to be a jumping mouse with a lizard tail and a sharp sting. It's also equipped with two pairs of lungs to survive in open air as well as under water.

What started to nerve me is the behavior of Elsa as a strict educator along one side and a distressed woman with an unfulfilled wish to be a mother on the other side. It came so far that she performed an amputation of the tail because she felt threatened. Also there was the jealousy as the creature began to show affection for Clive. Not so difficult since Elsa used DNA of her own. This was now really short-sighted in a deontological way.

*** SPOILER ALERT ***

We then underwent successively the following storylines: Clive has sex with the creature, the creature dies and is buried, a male variant appears suddenly and rapes Elsa, murders Clive and Elsa finally crushes it with a huge rock. As a final result, Elsa is pregnant with a new specimen and gets a fortune so scientists can study her body. Well well well, we really didn't see that one coming.

Conclusion: An excellent start, an annoying and tedious middle and a totally weird and insane ending. Dren (the inverse of NERD) was in the early stages nicely formed by the CGI and in the final stage I really could appreciate the unfolding of her wings. Eventually she mostly had a carnival cartoon-like appearance with a rubber sheath over her head. But the erotic development was a bridge too far for me and gave rise to meaningless and superfluous scenes. This movie isn't exactly a high flyer. And they could have made so much more of it !