Remember when the Recording Academy added all of those new categories to the Grammys a few years ago?  They wanted to seem cooler and hipper, and supplemented the usual boring awards with trophies for Best Rap Duo and Best Heavy Metal Performance (which they proceeded to give to Jethro Tull).  With the cooler and hipper MTV Movie Awards breathing down their neck, The Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences is due for an overhaul of the Oscars, too.  The first new award created should be for “Best Picture That You Knew Was A Vapid Cesspool. But Was So Visually Amazing That You Sat In Your Seat, Paralyzed By Its Beauty.”

Okay, maybe the name of the category needs a little work (“Best Eye Candy”?), but you know the films I’m talking about.  The Beach.  Pitch Black.  Hollow Man.  I knew they were awful, but I still liked them because they were visually stunning.  The Cell would be a shoo-in for a Best Eye Candy nomination this year.  It’s a silly serial-killer story with run-of-the-mill acting, but it’s wrapped in an amazing package of intricate costumes, striking set/production designs and gorgeous photography.  Watching The Cell is like getting a present, but being happier with the wrapping paper and box than the actual gift.  With George W. Bush leading in the polls, I’m sure the rest of America won’t have much of a problem with this concept.

There are two basic storylines in The Cell.  One deals with child therapist Catherine Deane (Jennifer Lopez, Out of Sight), who is leading a seven-year experiment to enter the mind of the young, comatose son of a billionaire.  And when I say “enter the mind,” I mean just that.  Deane and the boy have their brains hotwired to each other, and are suspended from the ceiling with their faces covered while they wear suits that appear to be made from human muscle.  Through modern technology, she is able to travel into his head, where she tries to coax the boy out of his shell.  These scenes are beautiful and haunting, but you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The second story concentrates on the FBI’s pursuit of a serial-killer who is offing young girls.  Every six days, they find another body that has been drowned, bleached, wrapped in plastic and ditched for the agents to find.  The agents, led by Peter Novak (Vince Vaughn, Psycho), have no clues, but are able to track the killer down in a rather unbelievable way.  But before they can catch Carl Stargher (Vincent D'Onofrio, The Thirteenth Floor), he goes into a coma because of a rare form of schizophrenia.  He’s out of commission permanently, and the FBI is unable to get Stargher to reveal the whereabouts of his grisly hideaway.  The problem is that Stargher still has a girl stashed away, and his automatic death-machine is set on auto pilot, giving the Feds precious little time to save her.

So the Feds take Stargher to Deane’s lab, where she reluctantly agrees to penetrate the killer’s sick mind in order to save the girl.  Needless to say, Stargher’s brain is a lot darker and scarier than Deane has experienced with the young boy.  She’s terrified by the disturbing things she sees, but still attempts to make headway when she realizes Stargher’s problems can be traced back to an abusive childhood.  In other words, she’s trying to save the young Stargher, while Novak is trying to save the girl he’s got locked up in his killing shack.  You won’t see more alarming and upsetting images than when Deane ventures into Stargher’s mind.

The Cell doesn’t follow the stereotypical serial-killer film formula by having the bad guy caught fairly early into the film.  While it’s an intriguing idea, the film really seems to be missing something without a lengthy pursuit and apprehension.  It’s a little choppy, too, as the Lopez thread kind of disappears while the D’Onofrio thread is played out completely.  And The Cell really suffers from a serious lack of chemistry between Lopez and Vaughn, but that’s probably because Puff Daddy was growling at them just out of camera range.  D’Onofrio is downright chilling as Stargher, apparently saving up over a decade’s worth of insanity since he scared the crap out of me in Full Metal Jacket.

Credit The Cell’s incredible look to director Tarsem, who makes his feature film debut here.  Remember that creepy video for R.E.M.’s “Losing My Religion”?  Tarsem directed that, too.  In addition to nabbing the MTV Video Award for “Religion,” the Indian director has won several trophies for his work in commercials.  He certainly has an eye for the disturbing and shifts his gift into high gear in this film.  Adding to the general level of creepiness is Howard Shore’s (Se7en) thunderous score and set designs from Tom Foden, who has worked on hair-raising music videos, like Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer.”

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