Review: 'Splice' Is a Goopy Good Time

In the odd and oddly engrossing new sci-fi shocker "Splice," rock star scientists Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley create a new mutant from the genes of a handful of animals, supposedly to harvest proteins that could cure genetic diseases. Watching "Splice," you get the impression that the movie itself is a hybrid too -- a dash of "Frankenstein," a bit of Roger Donaldson's underrated "Species," some "Robocop" and "Starship Troopers," and a healthy dose of early David Cronenberg (and pretty much anything that falls under the "body horror" umbrella) with some Chris Cunningham videos thrown in for good measure.

The fact that "Splice" triumphs in spite of (or maybe because of) such clear artistic debt is one of the film's many sicko pleasures.

As the film starts, Brody and Polley are working at a genetics lab creating a couple of hybrids (Fred and Ginger) that can be used for medicinal purposes. The creatures themselves are amorphous blobs that have an overall phallic design. If you're with the movie after you see a couple of living-penis monsters "imprint" on each other, then you should be good for the remainder of the film. Our heroic, if morally ambiguous, scientists make a presentation to a vaguely powerful board member who speaks with a French accent and has a severe haircut, saying how the pair of monsters really are going to change the face of science. Then they propose the next step: add human genetic material to the evolutionary bouillabaisse. "No way," the board member says, except not in those exact words and in a French accent.
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But this doesn't stop them. Sequestering themselves in a secret lab away from the other scientists (including Brody's brother, played by Brandon McGibbon), they begin fooling with their new splicing material. They'll just see if they can do it. Once they figure that out, they'll abort the fetus and wait for the official go-ahead. Except that this is a spooky sci-fi movie so of course they don't terminate their little hybrid. In fact, when it first emerges with a long tail, rabbit-like legs, catfish-y whiskers and an odd vaginal slit for a mouth, it's kind of cute; a cuddly monster.

Things rapidly take a turn for the worse, of course, as the monster starts to age rapidly and the scientists have to hide away their secret affront to god as things get increasingly dangerous (this phase of the movie takes on additional genetic material, that of movies like "E.T."). The scientists (who are also a romantic pair) take the creature, now fully grown and played by French model Delphine Chaneac, out to Polley's abandoned family farmhouse. There, the duo try to set up a domestic living situation, except that their child is a six foot tall monstrosity that can now sprout wings, breathe under water, and when left unattended likes to murder and consume small woodland animals.

If there's one thing that can be said about "Splice" it's that you have no idea where it's headed, so this is where the plot synopsis will stop (pretty much all of this has been revealed in the trailer). Anytime you think that the movie will get too big or unwieldy, things are scaled back, with a shocking amount of time spent focused on Sarah Polley's character and her childhood. The movie is as much about moral questions as it is about domestic issues (gender roles, the pluses and minuses of bringing a child into the world, the genetic baggage you bestow your child), and part of the fun of watching a movie where a winged genetic freak eats a bunny is that you're so emotionally invested, not only in the humans but the monster too.

As Dren (Polley and Brody work for a company called NERD, in the very funny movie's lamest joke), Chaneac brings a calm sense of wonder and intelligence to a wordless role based largely on pantomime. The creature design, a combination of uncanny KNB prosthetics and computer augmentation, never overwhelms the performance and always shines through, which might be the movie's most special special effect. You feel for the creature, even when you think she might kill you with her gnarly barbed tail. There's a touch of tragedy, too. Polley hypothesizes that since she's aging so quickly she'll probably die soon too, although this conceit slightly falters during the movie's occasionally draggy and overlong run time.

Under co-writer-director Vincenzo Natali, who also oversaw "Cube" (which has become something of a cult classic), the whole movie glistens. Yes, that might be the copious amount of slime that fly across the screen. But it's also in the sleek design of the labs, the outstanding character renderings, and the chilly, upper-middle-class apartment that Polley and Brody share. As the movie moves away from the labs and into the spooky abandoned farmhouse, the movie takes on a sexual edge, too. Away from technological and societal trappings of modernity, the monster in all of us flourishes, he seems to be saying. Natali is an unquestionable provocateur and any understanding that this movie would play in the heartland to folks just looking for a jolly monster mash should be squashed by the time the movie's third act wraps up, but it's not just crazy bullshit for crazy bullshit's sake. It's a smart, funny, knowing and wacky. And while it may feel stitched together from a bunch of other movies, "Splice" is very much its own beast. [A-]