Review: Splice

Clive (Adrien Brody) and Elsa (Sarah Polley) are young scientists working on synthesizing a special protein by genetically engineering a new species to produce it. During their studies and with their funds in jeopardy, they cross moral boundaries to add human DNA to the experiment. Soon, the new species beings to grow at an exponential rate. The older it gets, the more human it becomes eventually being named Dren. Soon, it becomes a surrogate child to the 2 scientists who are constantly questioning her existence.

Adrien Brody excels as his sometimes sarcastic, sometimes cynical scientist who begrudgingly crosses the moral boundaries and holds the weight of that decision around his neck even in his more joyful moments with Dren. Sarah Polley on the other hand confidently makes and lives with the decision. She makes the first connection with Dren where the mother-daughter relationship is very clear. As time goes on, Elsa becomes obsessive and over-protective, like a stage mom but for a freak of nature that they need to keep hidden. Her actions become cold and colder towards others to a strange point. It was either a bad performance or a genius direction. Either way, it was too distracting as your mind grapples between the two variables. As Dren gets older, the line between predatory mammal and feminine human becomes blurred. The three eventually become a Freudian nightmare as sexual tension becomes increasingly volatile.

The movie starts as a mind-boggling and interesting science fiction tale. The family unit felt very sincere and real, and the evolution of the Dren creature, while fantastical, was impressively realistic. It was a tragic story that tugged at a number of heartstrings. Its initial moral dilmena is compelling, and their constant struggle the dilmena causes is ambiguous enough to continue engaging. Unfortunately, the movie goes of the tracks in the third act. After the demented Cronenbergian twist between Clive and Dren, the story becomes a run of the mill monster flick. Dren loses her remaining humanity, and Clive and Elsa withdraw into faceless victims of any contemporary slasher film.

Splice had an interesting premise with the potential to be a great science fiction contribution to a genre that is overflowing with spandex-clad supermen, but it fails to tie up the loose ends in the same compelling manner that it started with.

5/10