Cell (2016)

Dir: Tod Williams

Graphic artist Clay Riddell (John Cusack MAPS TO THE STARS) arrives at the Boston airport and shortly after departing his plane calls his estranged wife (Clark Sarullo THE GHOST CLUB: SPIRITS NEVER DIE) and their young son. Mid conversation his mobile runs out of juice and he switches over to a pay phone as he's unable to find a free plug to charge his phone. As part of the set up as to what is about to happen, the film makers pack the opening with plenty of shots of people walking with a phone snugged to their ear. A loud, electronic noise erupts from the speaker of all phones in use. Anyone using their phone at the time foams at the mouth, shakes spastically and then sets out with speed and focus to kill the person in their line of sight or commit grievous bodily harm to themselves by bashing their heads into the closest concrete pillar or whatever is handy.

Amid the chaos of seemingly random violent attacks, Riddell hesitates as he is confused but is jolted into action when one of the 'phoners' turns his sights onto Riddell. Making a break for it he finds himself on the subway platform beneath the airport. The doors of the train car are open and a group of survivors of the initial carnage cluster nervously in the car waiting for it to depart the airport. Train driver, Vietnam vet, Tom McCourt (Samuel L. Jackson) explains to the group that the train isn't going anywhere. He and Riddell team together to escape on foot into the city proper.

The city has gone to hell in just a short time after the mysterious electronic noise erupted forth from mobile phones; cars are abandoned on the road, buildings are on fire, and cats and dogs are living together in the streets. Making their way to Riddell's nearby apartment they spend the night there to allow the shell shocked upstairs neighbour Alice (Isabelle Fuhrman ORPHAN) to join the team and for the viewer, in a bit of foreshadowing, to see a drawing of the hooded soon to be nemesis Raggedy (Joshua Mikel INTRUDERS) pinned to the wall. Riddell's plan is to make it to his wife and son as he has to know if they are still alive and McCourt and Alice tag along as they don't have anything better to do. In the morning the trio make their way on foot, meeting normals, no-so-normals and phoners who travel in flocks like birds and show up at just the right moment in an effort to inject some tension along the way.

I was on board for the first 20 - 30 minutes as the phoners are nothing more than fast moving zombies and our heroic trio pick up shotguns and pistols from a second amendment loving home in what I thought would be a fast paced zombie romp with a couple of big name stars adding a shred of gravitas to a derivative plot. Jackson and Cusak re-team in an opus written by Stephen King in an attempt by the producers to recapture some of the box office magic of the film 1408. It ain't happening. My first tip off should have been seeing Lloyd Kaufman wearing his usual loud jacket in the opening scene. By the time Stacy Keach (THE NINTH CONFIGURATION) appears as a school head master acting like he's the straight man in a comedy I'd given up all hope of the film recovering. The plot is negligible, there's little tension, the characters are drawn thinly and the ending is annoying. I like a bit of ambiguity in films when called for or the plot will support viewers looking for clues to answer the hanging questions left by the film makers. But this film! What is the origin of the electronic noise? Why does it turn people into zombies? Who is Raggedy and what does he have to do with the signal? And who thought the ending, which I've seen used in everything from a comic in EPIC magazine to the reboot of THE OUTER LIMITS, was a good idea? Was I suppose to read the book first? That ain't happening.

*1/2 out of ****