Movie Review: Godsend

Anti-Cloning Propaganda, a Movie Review
Godsend (d. Nick Hamm, s. Greg Kinnear, Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Robert DeNiro, Cameron Bright)
This is the latest in a long line of suspense thrillers to feature a creepy kid. This one, sadly, is not terribly effective. It is plagued by weak acting, cheap jump-scares, and not enough emotion. But, I guess you could say that it does succeed as a film espousing the inherent danger and unpredictability of human cloning in a modern setting.



The basic plot of the film follows Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos as parents of a young boy who is killed in a tragic accident. They are approached by a doctor who offers to use his process of cloning to recreate their son. Of course nothing goes as it should, that's where the suspense comes in.

Let's start with the positives, of which there are few. The thing I liked most was Greg Kinnear, he was the only cast member to really show any spark among the primary cast. He displays genuine conflict about what they are doing. There is also some decent cinematography scattered throughout. Outside of that, there isn't a heckuvalot to like about this lifeless movie about creating life.

On the other side, we are given a weak performance from Rebecca Romijn-Stamos. She was excellent in Femme Fatale, and fun in the X-Men movies, but here she just stumbles along in the mud until the end was reached. More disappointing than that is DeNiro's phoned in performance. He was so lifeless, it seemed as if he really didn't want to make the movie. His career seems to be in a bit of a slide as of late. He could have been so much more to this film, he obviously has the skills and charisma to do it. The boy, Cameron Bright, also didn't have a lot of life in his performance, he seemed to want to be Haley Joel Osment (The Sixth Sense), but ended up more like Jake Lloyd (Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace).

In the movie itself there were characters that appear for no reason, other than exposition. Take this scene for example: Kinnear is on the phone with who I believe to be a work associate, he offers his condolences and then is asked about Richard Wells (DeNiro). At no point during this does the guy ask why he wants to know about Wells, he just accepts it and hangs up the phone, not to be heard from again. Also there are silly lines like when DeNiro is speaking about cells, he explains the difference in function between cells like liver, heart, and cheek cells. You read that right, cheek cells! I guess the concept of skin is to hard to understand. Anyway, The movie goes into auto-pilot and we get the twist of a happy ending, or is it? To say anymore could threaten anyone's possible enjoyment of this snoozer.

In the end, it could stand as a reason not to clone a human? Ah, what do filmmakers know, it's not like any of this could happen.
Not recommended.