Don't Ever Call Me Again

From the trailer, Cellular looked intriguing. A kidnapped woman is able to fix a broken telephone to the point where she can make a call to an unknown person. My only problem is that I completely and utterly hate cell phone. Everyone I see yapping on the phone at the stoplight, grocery story, bathroom, and virtually everywhere else, I just want to scream “you are not that important that you need to contacted at any given moment.” I only carry a cell phone when I drive just because my hoopie can give out on me at any given moment. So needless to say, I had a bias against the film going in.

The movie stars Kim Basinger, best known for Final Analysis, as the previously mention damsel in distress, while Chris Evans, who has such gems as Not Another Teen Movie and Fantastic Four on his resume, as the knight in shinning amour, except a sword he carries a cell phone that probably cost a couple hundred. Filling out the cast is William H Macy, challenging Samuel L Jackson for number of movies he’s in regardless of quality, as a cop investigating the case, Jessica Biel as the token hot chick even though she rarely can fill the role properly, and Kim’s husband is played by Susan Mayer’s ex-husband.

There were plenty of plot holes throughout the movie, the one that bugged me the most was the school schedules in the movie. First the little kid gets out of school at 1:45, who actually get out that early. Then his mother is a high school science teacher, yet she has enough time to walk to him to the bus stop and take a shower, and still not be late for school herself. How much later does high school start after elementary school in California, in all the schools in my area, high school starts about an hour earlier? And speaking of the shower, why didn’t the housekeeper answer the phone while Kim was in there and even is she isn’t allowed to answer it, why didn’t she her the warning message? But I did like how her science job helped her out later in the film.

The movie also falls flat when it tries to interject humor into the script. Kim’s son having the same name as a cheesy singer just doesn’t work and ruins the urgency of the moment and Evan’s character being introduced as he was in a romantic comedy complete with a ex-girlfriend he wants to get back with and Stifler type sidekick also seems out of place too. There were even more scenes of this included in the deleted scenes including a token performance this time by G Love. The only thing that actually got me to chuckle was Macy’s porn star mustache. The movie also utilizes everything that could wrong with cell phones, tunnels, running out of juice, crossing signals, the latter being the most entertaining which involves a evil LA lawyer.

Cellular gets a on my Terror Alert Scale.