• Jul 29
• SPLICE: Review
• Posted by Deljhp - 29/07/10 at 05:22 PM

Director: Vincenzo Natali. Review: Pete Higgins.

Looking for a great comedy? A real laugh-riot? Look no further. Splice is here, and it shows up Toy Story 3, Greenberg, and Get him to the Greek as the miserable, humourless, down-beat grim-fests that they so assuredly are. Yes, folks, Splice is the wildest, funniest, laugh-out-loudest comedy you could ever hope to see. Following the recent ruling that all films released in 2010 must star Adrian Brody, it stars Adrian Brody as a scientist in a very bad suit and a succession of “cool” t-shirts. His wife, played by uber-irritant Sarah Polley, is also a scientist. Together these two geniuses/dolts are working on some sort of genetic-mutation-artificial-life nonsense that has so far resulted in two horrible blobs of muscle which they have named Fred and Ginger. But our heroes want more: they want to start splicing this stuff with human genetic information. And why not? As characters in the film say, over and over again, ‘What’s the worst that could happen?’

Where do I start? Perhaps our bungling boffins should have been a bit more selective in their choice of DNA for this ker-azee experiment. Perhaps also they should have watched a few horror movies before meddling with forces beyond their control. Very beyond their control. Because, only a few minutes later, they’ve got themselves a totally cute little “daughter” with weird eyes, a tail, and legs like that thing out of Pan’s Labyrinth. But they mustn’t, under any circumstances, tell anyone about the existence of little Dren (yeah, that’s her name – NERD backwards; don’t ask). How do they do this, in their high-security lab? Why, they just stick her in a box and dump her in the basement, before eventually remembering that La Polley’s character owns a farm in the middle of nowhere. Handy, that. Off to the farm they go. To say that things get a bit ridiculous from here on in would be like saying the North Pole is a bit chilly this time of year.

As is usual for brilliant scientists in stupid movies, Brody and Polley behave stupidly throughout. Also as usual, the powers-that-be threaten to withdraw funding, threaten to stop them doing what they have to do, but never succeed in doing anything that makes you understand how they ever got to be so powerful. Meanwhile, Dren is discovering all sorts of new powers (including how to break a window to escape, but never escape again through the resulting hole) and all sorts of new desires... if Freud were around to watch, he’d be carried out from the screening in a stretcher. As a comedy, Splice is without equal. From Brody’s and Polley’s dismal lack of chemistry, charisma and common-sense, via a great scene involving a whole bunch of people getting splattered with blood, and all the way through to the hysterical climax, the laughs just keep on coming. However, as I left the cinema on an all-time high, I was beset, albeit briefly, by a pang of disquiet: hang on I thought, this was supposed to be a comedy, wasn’t it? Wasn’t it?

Splice official site