Splice (**1/2)

Coming barely a week after Craig Venter’s announcement that his team had created a synthetic bacteria from man-made DNA, this release is nothing if not timely. One day, its premise that a couple of pharmaceutical company researchers (Adrien Brody, Sarah Polley) could combine human and animal DNA into a new creature may become quite plausible. And yet, should that happen, it's certain not to be like this.

As sci-fi, Splice is weak. You would think with the wealth of new information on DNA that there would be more science in a movie like this. We never find out what got spliced with the human DNA, but apparently it’s whatever’s required by any given scene. The two scientists—named Clive and Elsa after the actors in Bride of Frankenstein—are supposed to be brilliant, but their scientific process seems akin to mixing up a witch’s potion. Even they’re surprised, several times, by their own creation, which grows into something, or someone, looking like a little girl with a tail and chicken legs. This actually looks better on screen than it sounds.

As for the human elements in the movie, I can imagine that real scientists will groan at the usual Hollywood portrait of arrogance, impulsiveness, and seeming disregard for moral implications. In fact, the film does try to grapple with ethical issues—the meaning of humanity, the responsibilities of scientists, even, indirectly, abortion—but does so clumsily. Elsa especially veers from cool rationality to overt emotionality and back again, but Clive also has some abrupt shifts in character. Brody and Polley, an actress and director who’s stayed under the American radar by sticking to Canadian productions (like this one, filmed in Ontario), do their best. But by the end, it’s hard to tell who's nuttier, Elsa, Clive, or cowriter-director Vincenzo Natali. Natali would have be better off not to compress the story into such a short time frame, or, alternately, not to have so much happen so quickly. Steven Spielberg’s A.I. takes a similarly kitchen-sink approach to a sort of similar theme (though it’s about robots), but by having the story happen over a long period makes it seem philosophical.

I have to admit, Splice is a lot of fun for a bad movie. It’s not a straight horror movie, and is rarely gory, but there are a number of very creepy scenes. So it may be that horror fans, particularly fans of old monster movies, will enjoy it. (The effects are a lot better than in many of those old horror films.) Frankenstein is one obvious inspiration. But James Whale’s original film has a poignancy to it, and Splice just seems silly. A key scene in the movie produced both gasps and laughs. Coming early in the second half of the movie, it signals the moment where the story goes off the rails. Like most train wrecks, it’s not dull. But in this case, less would have been more.

IMDB link

viewed 6/1/10 at Ritz 5 [PFS screening] and reviewed 6/2–4/10