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Movies that bang
Reporting by Shoshana "I speak French" Parker & Sarah "I speak English" Galena

Godsend, a film portraying a couple’s decision to clone their son who is tragically killed, had the potential to be one of the most intriguing movies of the year, if only it had been made by a small indie-film company, and written with the objective to enlighten, not the intent to gorge the audience of its money. The storyline brings up many philosophical and controversial issues about the ethics surrounding cloning, but instead of delving into the psychological issues that both parent and child may face about the child’s identity – what makes someone an individual? Are we just a chemical formation of cells, or is there something else that keeps us alive? – the film ignores these questions and goes in another direction.

This could have been the next movie that all religious figures use to prove that G-d exists and that we all have neshamas that solidify our uniqueness. But unfortunately, some big movie producer said, Hey, you know what we should do? We should make this a horror film! This brilliant plan created a bad version of a The Sixth Sense/The Good Son combination, topped with a predictable “twist” ending that is too cliché to warrant the description of “surprise”. And besides, according to the film’s director, Nick Hamm, a scary child is an androgynous kid who doesn’t smile and has an intense stare.

Perhaps Robert De Niro was hoping that his role as Godsend Institute director (just in case you didn’t pick up on the fact that human cloning is playing God, the film title makes it ridiculously clear) would be an Oscar award-winning performance, because his depiction of his character is certainly over-the-top and completely improbable. Greg Kinnear – whom we have personally adored since his performance in Dear God (1996) – on the other hand, is outstanding in his portrayal of an anguished father.

We were afraid before seeing the movie that we would not be able to write a complete review because we would have our heads buried in our seats, unable to watch such frightening scenes; instead, we sat there and laughed at the unrealistic horror scenes – kids always have full access to industrial-sized axes, don’t they? Adding to the fact that the movie is not the least bit scary, many of its subplots are unnecessary and left undeveloped, leaving the audience saying, I can’t believe I spent 100 minutes of my life on that. Pretty horrific indeed.

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