http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1017460/

I respect Vincenzo Natali. The guy has tons of potential but every time I see his films there is a point where they have a major flaw that drags them down. Whether it's the painfully cheesy acting in Cube, the monotonous parts of Nothing, or how Cypher get's distracted by it's own cleverness and has mostly boring characters. I really wanted to love Splice. It has a somewhat plausible and interesting plot, a good cast, and special effects, but like his other films there is a point where the film loses it's potential. I will get to that later though. In Splice, Adrian Brody, and Sarah Polley are lab partners Elsa, and Clive. They are trying to create a hybrid animal gene but the corporate they work for has spent enough money funding their project and want to get it done quickly. Of course Elsa rebels and slips some human DNA into the project which surprisingly creates a weird creature that grows at a rapid rate. She names the creature Dren and she and Clive pretty much become the thing's parents. The first problem with this film is that I never really felt the chemistry between Elsa, and Clive that would have made the film more compelling.

The parts that show Dren growing and learning are by far the best parts of the film. Dren is creepy, but loveable. It spells out words on a scrabble board and appears to be getting smarter, and more advanced by the day. At first Clive wants to terminate the experiment but Elsa refuses and decides to raise it as a child even though she didn't appear to have much of an interest in children before. Even though she appears to love the delightful little Dren they lock it in a barn. Because where else right? They know that they must keep this creature a secret from the world. Despite the scenes of Dren growing up I never really identified with it. The film focuses on the problems of Clive, and Elsa instead which while interesting I would have liked to find out more about Dren.

She makes odd sounds that seem to communicate with people, but it just feels like a strange animal rather than a creature I can feel sorry for. Instead of making Dren into a character with depth they make it oddly adorable, and human like which seems to be the default choice of creature design these days. We don't need a creature with depth, all we need apparently is a weird thing with wide set eyes that makes cute sounds.Dren also have wings, a tail, and sloth like fingers that make it look like the director couldn't decided on what the thing should look like and just threw a bunch of random animal designs together.

This film is an interesting mix of overdone ethical, and moral themes, mixed with the idea of whether we can identify with a creature that was created in a lab. The ideas are fine, but they have been done so many times before in better films like The Fly that I found it tough to identify with Dren. The minor characters are mostly generic caricatures that are mostly filler, but they play their roles well enough. Now lets get to the part that annoys me. The film gets to a point where the main characters make stupid enough decisions to move the plot to a point that really didn't work. I won't spoil it, but I will say that it goes from being an interesting sci fi story into a generic and cliche hollywood creature flick.

The different forms that Dren takes later are pretty ridiculous, and the film can't decide whether it wants to be a campy horror film like Slither or one with actual heart. It pretty much turns into Species later on when the film gets even weirder with themes of incest, and beastiality. The character motivations totally change in a way that felt random and purely to shock. Sadly I can't think of a way the film could have went plot wise that would have made it better. The ridiculous twist works despite how silly it is, but I can't help thinking that there could have been a better way to end it that doesn't have the weird sexual parts. Even though Splice is a very flawed film I still recommend it. I can't think of another film like it this year so it gets points for being kind of original.

Overall I give it a 6.5 out of 10.