Click on CAPCon Alert
image for explanation
A service to parents and grandparents
MAR20079
The Cell (2000), (R)
CAP Score: 36
CAP Influence Density: 1.76
Click on CAPCon Alert image for explanation |
A service to parents and grandparents MAR20079 The Cell (2000), (R) CAP Score: 36 CAP Influence Density: 1.76 |
|
 with your The foul language eliminator  Removes profanity from movies and TV shows Switch to LifeLine  for Christian long distance service CloseoutVideo.Com  Absolute lowest price videos/DVDs inthe world guaranteed! The Family Friendly  Internet Service A Christ Centered  Community Web Site Comments?  Christian Media News  A Singles Christian Network  Your One Stop  For Everything Christian PLEASE VOTE!  for this site! |
 Christian Banner eXchange For FREE text-only versions of our media analysis reports as they are calculated, open this email then click "send." If your browser does not handle this URL format properly, send me a request to add you.
SUMMARY / COMMENTARY: The Cell (R) -- a bizarre trip into man's perception of the deranged mind. A most bizarre movie, indeed. A techno-fantasy using modern technology to link minds at the subconscious level. Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez) has been linking regularly with the mind of a boy in a coma, trying to bring him out of it. More fantasy comes as the movie presents the thinking that if your mind thinks something is real, it is. And if your mind thinks something can kill you, it can. This sets up the dangers of connecting with the mind of another comatose individual -- a exceptionally nasty and vile serial killer, Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio) who has his latest victim in a glass cage setup to drown her in 40 hours just like all the rest. And you meet the rest if you watch this show. They are all dead, decaying and dolled up like dolls. At the end of a horse ride in the desert, Catherine dismounts while her horse turns into a toy horse. She then treks along the ridge of a sand mountain for a long, long time to meet the boy in their minds. With what appears to be some success at "reaching" the boy, the project magnates decide to let Catherine enter Stargher's mind to try to discover the location of the victim. As is logical, FBI Agent Novak (Vince Vaughn) is involved in the investigation. And he is not only involved in the investigation, he gets involved in the mind search to rescue Catherine. At first, there were only two people mutually messing with minds: the boy and Catherine. Now there are three traipsing around in a meld of the three minds: Cahterine's mind, Novak's mind and the killer's. Catherine's mind, she being a quiet, pleasant and confident lady, is portrayed as sparkly and flowery. The boy's mind is portrayed as dry and mostly defensive with some offensive imagery when he felt cornered. While we do not see how the FBI agent's mind appears, we do see the killer's mind: dark, ugly, vulgar, twisted and soaked. What do we expect since the killer's father was quite probably the most evil father of all time. He was emotionally, physically and sexually abusive. He screamed at the young Carl with wild, irrational accusations, beat him and used him for an ironing board, and made him look at the privates of some almost-nude woman in their living room. Don't know whether the woman was Carl's mother or the father's girlfriend. All the horrors that happened to the boy combined with a convenient virus to create the psychotic killer he was. But, of course, the parent was the most to blame. The tour of the minds of the adults was most bizarre. I wonder how a human mind can think up stuff like that which was shown. Demon faces. A horse sliced into about ten pieces vertically -- and still alive as indicated by the pulsating innards. Here is where you will meet the victims of Stargher. All dead and decaying but animated by an intricate contraption. And all nude. Everything of the tours through the minds is presented in a dream-like or nightmare state. Never concrete and never completely misty, as if the entire physical universe is only what you see. Rarely with smooth and normal motion but mostly with ill-defined and questionable haunting motion and sensory imagery. This in particular is where music has as much or more of of a contribution to the total than the visual information. While a very well made and very intricately knitted piece of work, there was a great deal of ignominy. Of course, foul language was one of the largest contributors to the unacceptable programming [Matt. 12:36-37]. This is an R-rated movie and I guess that is supposed to excuse the sin of filthy language [Col. 3:8[. As some blame movies for planting ideas into the minds of they who would otherwise not think up such evil I believe this movie could do that, especially in the presentation of the putridly evil father [3 John 11]. And I am not the only one who claims evil or bad behavior plants aberrant behavior templates in others. Not only do four professional health associations now confirm copycat properties of viewing aberrant and evil behavior, God said so a very long time ago [1 Cor. 15:33]. Additional programming with possible copycat properties which may embolden the viewer, desensitize him/her, or encourage dropping of inhibitions and loss of coping skills might include the plethora of nudity and sexual perversions [1Ths. 4:3; Jude 7], the arrow impalements, the spooling of intestines on to a "rotisserie" as it is pulled from the gut of a live man, the sword impalements, or the dead woman in the tub full of blood. Or the numerous bloody injuries, the portrayal of magic to control or gain, the brutal confinement as prelude to death, the flesh ripping, or the numerous sequences of very bizarre imagery [Gal. 5:19-21]. As always, it is best to refer to the Findings/Scoring section -- the heart of the CAP analysis model -- for the most complete assessment possible of this movie. FINDINGS / SCORING: 
NOTE: Multiple occurrences of each item described below may be likely. Wanton Violence/Crime (W): Impudence/Hate (I)(1): Sex/Homosexuality (S): Drugs/Alcohol (D): Offense to God (O)(2): Murder/Suicide (M)(3):  |
