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View Full Version : Splice or What the Hell Did I Just Watch?


BitVyper
06-08-2010, 03:21 AM
So, I think this movie would actually be really good if it weren't so terrible. But... wow.

The science is bad, which wouldn't be a problem so much if the movie were conducted like say, Jurassic Park, where all the bad science happens off screen and you can just sort of go "okay, I don't know the exact method, but I guess they somehow did it," but first two thirds of this movie take place in the lab, so it's kind of hard to ignore. Like, I wasn't expecting a movie that was about creating animal hybrids to be hard science fiction, but I was kind of expecting the "we're SCIENTISTS! We work in a LAB" portion of the movie to be like, half an hour tops.

The premise of the movie is more or less your basic science-gone-too-far plot, but it really seems to be trying to drive home that genetic science is evil, which again forces the bad science into the open. They spend so much time trying to forcibly create these moral issues that when they come about, they aren't very believable because they didn't come about due to people trying to grasp too much knowledge or anything, they came about because....

Everyone in this movie is stupid. Completely and utterly fucking pants-on-head retarded. The two main characters especially are just... pathologically incapable of making a good decision. Like if they are presented with any kind of choice, they will immediately find an outside-the-box option that is even more terrible than any of their original options. This becomes a bit more justifiable later on just because they've already gone so stupidly far that they might as well go for broke because there's no fixing this. One choice in particular (if you've seen it, you'll know the one) actually caused our theatre to erupt in laughter. The general intelligence level is around Friday the Thirteenth teenager.

Anyway, if you've seen the preview for this movie, you may be going in thinking it's a horror/thriller sort of deal. It's not, except for like the last twenty minutes. If a monster movie is what you want, you'll probably be bored out of your skull.

All of that said, there's actually a really good movie hidden in there. The latter portion is weird, and a bit challenging. The characters actually develop a bit, and the story in general gets a lot better. I think this is largely because the latter portion takes place far far away from the lab. I also think there was supposed to be a whole lot more of this part of the movie and less of the other stuff, 'cause it seems like a whole different story happening, and some points get touched on that were clearly meant to be followed further.

It's... probably worth a rent just to have seen it, but I wouldn't shell out at the theatre for it unless you've got some friends together who are good for seeing bad movies (like me). MSTing THAT scene alone almost makes the whole thing worthwhile.

Magus
06-08-2010, 10:34 AM
Anyway, if you've seen the preview for this movie, you may be going in thinking it's a horror/thriller sort of deal.

Yeah, I read Roger Ebert's review and I was like, "Wait, there doesn't seem to be anything about a ravening monster chasing them down the whole movie. He just mentions a chase scene at the end!" I don't get where movie studios just totally lie with the tone of their trailers...well, I do, but you'd think they'd figure out that getting asses in seats isn't as important as not pissing off all those asses away from future releases from that studio for making them see something they didn't want to see and weren't looking for.

Also he paints their creating their weird monster daughter as a plan to create lab-made beef gone awry. It sounded hilariously stupid, like their superiors were like "Hey, we created synthetic meat, our original mission. Let's stop here" and the two scientists go "YOU ARE CHOKING OUR CREATIVITY, WE NEED TO CREATE LIFE USING THIS, LET'S DO IT IN SECRET! OH CRAP FREAKY MONSTER!"

BitVyper
06-08-2010, 10:54 AM
Well, in this case, I think the movie was seriously fucked by the executives or something. It's the only way I can explain most of it.

It sounded hilariously stupid, like their superiors were like "Hey, we created synthetic meat, our original mission. Let's stop here" and the two scientists go "YOU ARE CHOKING OUR CREATIVITY, WE NEED TO CREATE LIFE USING THIS, LET'S DO IT IN SECRET! OH CRAP FREAKY MONSTER!"

Well the idea was that it was for research into genetic conditions and the big bad executive said nuh uh, no human research, we can make money with the animal stuff you've done and not be media pariahs. Now I figure that once you've got good enough genetic technology to start mixing and matching species any way you like, you could probably fix things like Parkinson's anyway, but I guess you really need to make a human/animal hybrid first. Anyway, the chick decides to try just to see if they can get a viable embryo, but then they keep not aborting it, and it comes to term really fast (they keep it in a lab that apparently no one ever needs to use), and so things continue.

Aerozord
06-08-2010, 01:18 PM
the girl in it seemed to be the worst from the previews. I got the distinct impression of overblown maternal instinct going on. You know those psycho women that treat flesh eating monsters the same way you might treat a two year old

Carade
06-08-2010, 01:46 PM
I like the part where they f*ck.