Locked in a killer's thoughts

'The Cell' visually appealing, viscerally appalling

In this story: Images carry film One twisted guy Scenes scary and sick RELATED STORIES, SITES

By Paul Clinton
CNN.com Reviewer

(CNN) -- In "The Cell" Jennifer Lopez plays a psychologist experimenting with something called transcendental science. It's a process allowing her literally to experience what's happening in another person's unconscious mind.

Yes, this is science fiction, with an emphasis on fiction. Maybe viewers can accept the idea of traveling through someone else's mind. But Lopez as a psychologist?

However, this script by first-time film writer Mark Protosevich goes to great lengths to explain why Lopez's character, Catherine Deane, is the only person sensitive enough to break through barriers in this new scientific field.

Yeah, right. During most of the action, this sensitive soul is in various stages of undress; she's displayed like a side of beef. And we're supposed to take her seriously as a doctor!

Well, whatever. The good doctor looks great in the rubber suit into which she's apparently poured every time she takes one of her mind-boggling journeys.

Visuals -- images disturbing, surreal and erotic -- are what this movie is all about. Once the storyline leads into mind travel the production design by Tom Foden goes wild. The film becomes a cross between "The Matrix" (1999) and "What Dreams May Come" (1998) with a little "Silence of the Lambs" (1991) tossed in.

"Cell" is the directorial debut of Tarsem Singh, who prefers to be known simply as Tarsem -- one name, just like Cher or Madonna. What, pray, may be next? Best boy Bob?

Tarsem may be forgiven for a bit of pretension. His award-winning music videos and commercials are stunning, and some have become part of museums' modern-art collections.

Tarsem opens the film with a spectacular dream type scene shot in an African desert, and you know right away that, visually, "The Cell" will not be your run-of-the-mill Hollywood production. And it's not: Beyond the visuals, this is, at heart, one disturbing flick.

VIDEO Theatrical trailer for 'The Cell' Play video (QuickTime, Real or Windows Media)     PROFILE Jennifer Lopez on music, movies and minds     MORE REVIEWS Van Wilder High Crimes Big Trouble Panic Room Blade II Ice Age Showtime Time Machine We Were Soldiers Queen of the Damned Dragonfly Iris John Q Big Fat Liar Collateral Damage Monster's Ball Slackers Birthday Girl Monte Cristo Mothman Orange County Charlotte Gray I Am Sam Gosford Park Black Hawk Down Ali Kate & Leopold Shipping News Jimmy Neutron Joe Somebody Beautiful Mind The Majestic The Lord of the Rings Lantana The Royal Tenenbaums Vanilla Sky No Man's Land Affair of the Necklace Enemy Lines In the Bedroom Spy Game Sidewalks Harry Potter Shallow Hal Man Who Wasn't There Heist Amelie Focus Domestic Disturbance Tape Monsters, Inc. Life As A House My First Mister K-Pax From Hell Riding in Cars Last Castle Mulholland Drive Bandits Serendipity Joy Ride Training Day Don't Say a Word Zoolander Hearts in Atlantis Glitter Liam The Glass House Hardball The Musketeer Rock Star O Bubble Boy Jade Scorpion Corelli's Mandolin Apocalypse Redux Now American Pie 2 The Others Osmosis Jones Ghost World Rush Hour 2 Jackpot Planet of the Apes America's Sweethearts Jurassic Park III Legally Blonde The Score SongCatcher Cats and Dogs Scary Movie 2 crazy/beautiful A.I. The Fast and the Furious Dr. Dolittle 2 Atlantis Tomb Raider Swordfish Evolution Worst That Could Happen? Pearl Harbor Angel Eyes Shrek Calle 54 A Knight's Tale Mummy Returns About Adam One Night at McCool's Town and Country The Claim Freddy Got Fingered Bridget Jones's Diary Joe Dirt Along Came a Spider Blow Tailor of Panama Someone Like You Heartbreakers Say It Isn't So Enemy at the Gates The Dish Blow Dry 15 Minutes The Caveman's Valentine The Mexican 3000 Miles to Graceland Monkeybone Sweet November Hannibal Shadow of the Vampire The Gift Snatch Chunhyang Finding Forrester O Brother, Where Art Thou Thirteen Days Before Night Falls Vatel The House of Mirth Traffic Malena An Everlasting Piece All the Pretty Horses Miss Congeniality The Family Man Cast Away Chocolat What Women Want Emperor's New Groove Crouching Tiger,  Hidden Dragon Proof of Life Vertical Limit Dungeons & Dragons Unbreakable Quills 102 Dalmatians Just Looking What's Cooking The 6th Day The Grinch Bounce Boesman and Lena A Room for Romeo Brass You Can Count on Me Men of Honor Red Planet Little Nicky Wonder Boys Legend of Bagger Vance Charlie's Angels George Washington Lucky Numbers Blair Witch 2 The Yards Pay It Forward Bedazzled Lost Souls The Contender Billy Elliot Dr. T and the Women Requiem for a Dream Meet the Parents CyberWorld 3D The Broken Hearts Club Girlfight Best in Show Beautiful Remember the Titans Into the Arms of Strangers Under Suspicion Woman on Top Dancer in the Dark Crime and Punishment in Suburbia Duets The Ballad of Ramblin' Jack Bait Almost Famous 'Went to Coney Island on a Mission from God ...Be Back by Five' The Watcher Nurse Betty Whipped Love and Sex Bring It On The Crew Art of War The Cell Original Kings Of Comedy Autumn in New York Tao of Steve Cecil B. Demented The Replacements Wonderland New Waterford Girl Hollow Man Space Cowboys Coyote Ugly Criminal Lovers Saving Grace Nutty Professor II What Lies Beneath Loser The Wisdom of Crocodiles Chuck & Buck X-Men But I'm a Cheerleader Blood Simple Scary Movie Disney's The Kid Trixie Rocky and Bullwinkle Sunshine The Perfect Storm The Patriot Me, Myself & Irene Chicken Run Boys and Girls Shaft Titan A.E. American Pimp Gone in 60 Seconds Passion of Mind Big Momma's House Mission: Impossible 2 Small Time Crooks East Is East Dinosaur Center Stage Battlefield Earth The Big Kahuna Virgin Suicides Gladiator Me Myself I Time Code Where the Heart Is Frequency 28 Days U-571 Joe Gould's Secret American Psycho Keeping the Faith Here on Earth Rules of Engagement Return to Me Romeo Must Die The Road to El Dorado The Ninth Gate Mifune Waking the Dead Beyond the Mat Erin Brockovich You be the critic! Recommend a movie on our message board

Vincent D'Onofrio is chilling as Carl Stargher, an ingenious serial killer who's seriously sick. He kidnaps women, then tortures them by slowly drowning them in a glass box. The water is released on a timer and he videotapes the whole process. He also has metal rings embedded in his back, arms and legs and loves being suspended by them in midair.

Stargher has struck again, and another woman is missing. Hot on his trail is FBI Agent Peter Novak, played by Vince Vaughn. But when Novak and his fellow feds finally locate him, Stargher has just had some sort of stroke and is in a permanent coma. His victim is nowhere to be found.

Dr. Deane and her crack scientific team, Henry West (Dylan Baker) and Dr. Miriam Kent (Marianne Jean-Baptiste), may be just what the FBI needs. They're experimenting with a comatose boy by using their transcendental machine to communicate with his subconscious mind.

Novak asks Deane to try her machine on Stargher, hoping the madman's mind may reveal where he's stashed his latest victim before the drowning begins.

Stand back. Tarsem, Foden and Japanese artist/costume designer Eiko Ishioka really let loose. They take us back and forth between reality and the beautifully colored, but horrifying mind of a psychotic killer.

Ishioka won an Academy Award for her work on Francis Ford Coppola's "Bram Stoker's Dracula" (1992), and once again she's achieved amazing results. D' Onofrio plays five different characters who are all part of Stargher's mind, each one terrifying. At one point he's even sporting nipple rings -- another mainstream cinematic barrier broken.

Things get real sick real fast in the dark recesses of Stargher's mind as Deane tries to find out where the woman is hidden. If you remember the ending of "Braveheart" (1995) when Mel Gibson is getting his guts pulled out inch by inch, you'll have an idea of some of the fun and games going on in this guy's head.

What can you expect in "The Cell"? Operatic visuals, a beautiful Lopez, great acting by Vaughn and D'Onofrio and an extremely sick storyline that will make you squirm in your seat. Teen-age audiences looking for action will probably turn out in droves to see this film.

"The Cell" will make millions in ticket sales -- despite the fact that the film itself is one sick ticket.

"The Cell" opens nationwide on Friday and is rated R. 107 minutes.

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