SPLICE

“SPLICE” (Adrian Brody & Sarah Dolley)

Brody & Dolley play Clyde & Elsa, genetic scientists working for a place called N.E.R.D... Got a problem with that? Yeah, me too. First off no one named Clyde is going to become a scientist; secondly, NERD? Really? Did they actually think they were coming up with a clever, believable Acronym with that? “Hi, I’m Clyde, I’m a scientist working for NERD...” Not gonna happen.
Clyde & Elsa are also live-in lovers – they have developed a new life form which they have named Fred & Ginger... No, this is set in modern times, not in the 50’s when those names would have been more recognizable. Fred & Ginger resemble living loafs of unbaked bread with mouths. At their first meeting the creations reveal exceptionally long tongues that seem to blossom as they intertwine – Aww, Fred & Ginger experience love at first sight. So now we just sit back & wait for Ginger to start having litters of unbaked pretzels & bagels...
For the head of NERD, this is not enough – I’m not really sure what she was asking for, other than telling Clyde & Elsa that they needed to move on to ‘Phase 2’ in order to keep the grant money coming in.
Elsa decides they should use human DNA in their next experiment, which Clyde is initially opposed to until Elsa tells him they could create something that could “Save millions of lives.”
I was not only disliking the film, I disliked the lead characters as well. I especially disliked Elsa when she tells Clyde to turn off the Led Zeppelin song he’s listening to because, “Zeppelin crashed and burned before I was born!” - So did Fred & Ginger, babe, develope some good taste, will ya?
When their human hybrid comes out of the artificially created womb it looks like a sting-ray. Now we reach the point where I started to become annoyed as they begin stealing from my favorite sci-fi movie of all-time, “Alien” The sting ray turns out to just be a shell. What emerges looks like a plucked chicken with long legs, a stubby tail & no wings. Clyde thinks it is in pain & wants to kill it – Elsa stops him.
She nurtures the creation thru its awkward phase, naming it ‘DREN’... How did she come up with that clever name? That’s right, it’s NERD spelled backwards.
Now I’m hating this film & just want it to be over with.
Like ‘Alien’ the creature ages rapidly & goes thru many metamorphoses eventually turning into a humanistic being – In one quick edit it suddenly has arms & has developed a deadly looking stinger protruding from the tail, which is now quite long.
Once out of the evolutionary stages, ‘Splice’ started to become interesting. I noticed how Elsa always referred to Dren as ‘she’, whereas Clyde would use ‘it’. When Dren develops a burning fever they place her/it in a vat of cold water to bring the fever down.
As it battles ‘mom & dad’ to get out of the tub, Clyde decides he’s had enough, grabs the tail to control the stinger & drowns Dren... Weirdly enough Dren doesn’t die, but I loved the fact that clueless Elsa thought Clyde wasn’t trying to kill ‘it’.
There’s an unfortunate scene involving the presentation of Fred & Ginger that, though necessary to the plot, was played up big time for those who crave scenes of gore in their sci-fi flicks. I thought it would turn out to be a dream sequence, but it wasn’t.
‘Splice’ takes some inane, sick twists but by the end I felt that I had witnessed something worth seeing – Visually, Dren is a fascinating creation & LOOKS real. Even though Clyde & Elsa don’t act like believable scientists (It would have worked better if they were teenaged mutant ninja scientists) their behavior should lead to some interesting post-film conversations. Unfortunately for me, I took my dogs & all they wanted to talk about was the scene where the cat is killed.