Based on the 2006 Stephen King novel of the same name, Cell sees Clay Riddell (John Cusack) returning home to his family when an unexpected event caused by mobile phones sends people crazy so Clay must escape with fellow survivors a train conductor, Tom McCourt (Samuel Jackson) and his neighbour Alice Maxwell (Elizabeth Furhman) to try and figure out what is going on and save his family along the way as they bump onto a couple of groups of survivors who’s sanity seems as precarious as the enemy they are facing.

Unfortunately it’s yet another case of a poor adaptation of a Stephen King novel, how that guy must be frustrated watching his good stories being destroyed on the screen, although I’m sure the money flowing in helps. When will Hollywood realise that a good novel horror/sci-fi does not always translate to a good movie?

With an antagonist made up for the movie and very reminiscent of Randall Flagg from The Stand book albeit, much less terrifying and monsters (if they are really that) who’s communication system is very similar to the aliens in Invasion Of The Body Snatchers the film feels like a mish-mash of ideas from other movies behind the story line except the ideas don’t work and the movie is neither entertaining or horrific. I never felt any semblance of caring or empathy for the survivors and I can only put that down to the movie as the book does a good job of it. The best credit I can give it is that it acts like a science fiction piece about technology turning on us (Maximum Overdrive anybody?) which is no doubt mean to be a moralistic, cautionary tale used as a metaphor for about how much we rely of technology and in particular our phones in modern life causing us to act like mindless zombies however, it ends up as nothing more than a cheap feeling B-movie that even an A-list cast that really should have known better cannot save and the disappointing, cheap story line ending was probably the most disappointing thing of all. 

DJ Speaks Rating: 4 Out Of 10