Cell (15)
As great a writer as Stephen King is, his work hasn’t always received the finest big screen treatment.
For every Shawshank Redemption, Misery and Stand By Me there are what seems like dozens of duds – Dreamcatcher, Dolan’s Cadillac and A Good Marriage to name a few.
Having read the Cell book, I was expecting good things from this latest King adaptation. After all the plot – which sees a mysterious signal turn people into zombie-like figures – seemed perfect cinematic foil.
Unfortunately, though, the page-to-screen transition falls way short of even delivering frequent short, sharp scares, never mind the brilliance of the finest King-flavoured flicks.
That’s despite a fine, memorably manic opening sequence that sees the initial outbreak cause chaos at an airport, with people fighting, a dog getting eaten and planes colliding.
But it never reaches those heights again as the pace slows and the cast sit around chatting about nothing particularly interesting for lengthy spells.
Screenplay scribe Adam Alleca (The Last House on the Left remake) adapts King’s novel and much of what worked well in print doesn’t translate well to film.
The inability to read certain characters’ inner monologues leads to too much exposition spouting and several instances of moments where it’s not clear exactly what is going on.