GODSEND
A film review by Steve Rhodes
Copyright 2004 Steve Rhodes
RATING (0 TO ****): * 1/2
To paraphrase Joyce Kilmer's famous poem, boys are made by fools like me,
but
only Dr. Wells can make a copy. GODSEND, a science fiction horror movie
with a
single idea (cloning), is directed lamely by Nick Hamm, whose last film
was the
equally inept THE VERY THOUGHT OF YOU (internationally titled MARTHA, MEET
FRANK, DANIEL AND LAURENCE).
A by-the-numbers thriller, GODSEND plays like a bad TV movie that somehow
attracted a good cast. Robert De Niro phones in his performance as Dr.
Richard
Wells, a fertility expert with a secret, monster-sized clinic in the
middle of
nowhere. He mysteriously shows up at the funeral of eight-year-old Adam
Duncan
(Cameron Bright) and offers to cook up a duplicate Adam -- should have
tried
for Eve -- for Adam's distraught parents, Paul and Jessie Duncan (Greg
Kinnear
and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos).
From the very beginning, the plot is riddled with believability problems.
After Paul is mugged by one of his ex-students -- who ends up giving him a
pass
after recognizing him -- and after he is offered a new teaching job in a
safer
town at exactly twice his current salary, Paul does what we all would do.
He
wants to turn it down because he is worried about "selling out." Right.
Dr.
Wells obsessively clicks two big steel balls together in the palm of his
hand,
thereby driving the audience crazy. Hmm, where have we seen this behavior
before? My favorite part of the stupid story is that Dr. Wells arranges
for
the Duncans to be given a lakefront, multimillion dollar mansion to live
in
with their dup. It is complete with a three-story, spiral staircase and a
big
basement, whose sole purposes are to serve up visual opportunities for the
cinematographer.
The movie -- filled with all the horror movie clichés of loud, unexpected
noises and jump-cut dream sequences -- really doesn't get going until Adam
grows up to be eight again. After that, let's just say that he sees dead
people and has some bad nightmares that just might come true.
The story is so full of ridiculous moments that it's hard to hold down the
laughter. A preposterous and obviously guessed "twist" in the third act
was
all it took to open the floodgates in our audience. Up until then there
was
persistent random snickering, but, after the big "surprise," the guffaws
start
coming like a Biblical flood. If the movie were a parody, which it most
certainly isn't, this could have been a good thing.
"It this for real?" Jessie asks at one point. What she should have asked
is,
"Is this for laughs?"
GODSEND runs 1:42. It is rated PG-13 for "violence including frightening
images, a scene of sexuality and some thematic material" and would be
acceptable for teenagers.
The film opens nationwide in the United States on Friday, April 30, 2004.
In
the Silicon Valley, it will be showing at the AMC theaters, the Century
theaters and the Camera Cinemas.
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Email: Steve.Rhodes@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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X-Language: en
X-RT-ReviewID: 1276151
X-RT-TitleID: 1131893
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X-RT-AuthorID: 1271
X-RT-RatingText: 1.5/4
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