29) Cell (2016) - Obscure Stephen King flick #9

"Our sins have overcome us, and we cannot see..."

Director
Tod Williams

Cast
John Cusack - Clay Riddell
Samuel L. Jackson - Tom McCourt
Isabelle Fuhrman - Alice Waxman
Owen Teague - Jordan
Joshua Mikel - Raggedy Man

Zombies, and cell phones, and John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson teamed up in a Stephen King movie nearly 10 years after working together in the Stephen King movie 1408 - oh, my!
How this movie adaptation of King's cautionary novel of the same name, published in 2006, came out without a lot of notice, is kind of weird. When it comes to flying under the radar, this one was so far under that radar, it was practically invisible.
With John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, and Isabelle Fuhrman (Orphan, The Hunger Games) in the cast, it boggles the mind.
In Cell, directed by Tod Williams (Paranormal Activity 2) comic artist Clayton Riddell (John Cusack) is just landed at Boston airport from Los Angeles. When he arrives, he calls his ex-wife whom he previously walked out on, and his son to tell them he sold one of his graphic novels. He also makes an attempt to see his son and ex, but to little avail.
His phone dies mid-call, so he finds a payphone to call them again.
While he's on the landline phone, some kind of pulse is mysteriously sent through all cell phones causing users to convulse, foam at the mouth, and start going into violent fits of rage attacking other people and inflicting bodily harm on themselves.
As things inside the terminal escalate rapidly, Riddell and others unaffected by this pulse literally run for their lives.
Riddell makes it to the airports underground rail where he and a few other panicked travelers find that the train isn't operating.
The train operator, Tom McCourt (Samuel L. Jackson), tells them their only option is to abandoned the train because of a power outage, and there's no one in the main control room. Some stay in the train regardless, while Riddell and another guy decide to walk the tunnels with McCourt to escape the airport.
As they approach the end of the tunnel leading to the outside, they're quickly met by a man who kills the one guy. Riddell and McCourt manage to make it safely back to Riddell's apartment.
It goes without saying that any use of cell phones is out of the question.
After a few moments of useless dialogue and suspense that leads to nothing, a young girl named Alice Waxman (Isabelle Fuhrman) who lives upstairs knocks on the door looking for help.
She's panicked as she tells them she just killed her mom.
The remainder of this scene in Riddell's apartment is boring as they are basically sitting and waiting for...their next plan of action, I guess?
But what his role is in the story, and why he's appearing in the dreams of all survivors, or what his messages mean is unclear. And why it's one of Riddell's characters who's manifesting - also unclear. Does this mean that Riddell plays some kind of larger role in the string of events. Nothing along
those lines is explained.
The three of them set out to New England as Riddell wants to find his wife and son.
They camp out where they can, try to avoid the "phoners," - those affected by the pulse -  and run into other survivors.
These phoners, by the way, are somehow able to transfer the pulse themselves, using their voices. How, I don't know?
Meanwhile, Riddell has a dream of a man in a dirty red hoodie. It turns out all survivors are having dreams of the same person. He reveals himself to some as "the King of the Internet."
It turns out this person, referred to as Raggedy Man, is a character Riddell created in one of his graphic novels. But why he's appearing in everyone's dreams, what his purpose is, and what his sinister messages mean is unclear. In fact, it's never really explained.
Riddell finally makes it to his home. Inside, he finds a message from his son on the fridge written with letter magnets, letting him know he went to Kaswhak and his mom is "one of them."
On their way to Kaswhak, they run into Ray and Denise camping out in the wilderness. Ray warns Riddell Kaswhak is a trap set up by the Raggedy man, and not to go.
The ending of the movie just leaves more questions than answers. The motives behind who's responsible for the pulse remains unclear? Who actually is responsible is unclear, too. And just who this dreamy Raggedy Man is, and why he's showing up in people's dreams is one big mystery. Why any of this is happening - mystery!
Yet, somehow, some characters have answers rather quickly. In one scene, Riddell, Waxman, and McCourt come across Charles Ardai (Stacy Keach) - a private school headmaster, and a surviving student, Jordan (Owen Teague - no stranger to King adaptations as he played Patrick Hockstetter in the recent It and It: Chapter 2), have both figured out some things rather quickly when the pulse was just sent out in, maybe, a day's time.
Ardai tells the group with lazy exposition, that the phoners have developed some kind of telepathic abilities among themselves. He also concludes that a war between survivors and phoners will soon take place. How he figured all this out is beyond me.
Jordan somehow figured out that the pulse reset the brains of those infected, and they are in some sort of evolutionary development. They're the beginning of a new species. Again, he figured this out so matter-of-factly, in such a short amount of time is poor writing in my opinion. Jordan later explains that he's super smart, but still. It seems as though the movie is telling rather than showing, and that's  poor writing.

I read the book Cell  back in 2009 - a cautionary story about just how much society depends on their mobile devices, and where their dependence leaves them. According to King, it was based on his dislike for cell phones. This was before he began constantly Tweeting photos of his Corgi, Molly (aka "the thing of evil"), and being blocked on Twitter by President Trump.
I saw production stills pop up on Facebook and some movie websites before this movie was released. Having read the book, I was excited to see a new King adaptation coming out. This was before the current King renaissance we're currently experiencing. 
But news of Cell faded like any typical internet rumor, and I didn't see or hear anything about it until stumbling upon a copy of it at my local public library.
Evidently, this movie went through some kind of release hell before going straight to DVD. I heard there was a very limited theatrical release, but not at any theater near me.
What lacks here is a clear story line, kind of like the movie Mercy (based on King's short story, Gramma) which I previously reviewed.
I found myself lost on certain details, which made the end of the movie confusing.
The story also seems too fast paced with a story line too simplified for its own good.
Even though such a cautionary, or maybe socially satirical tale is timely (though critic Odie Henderson on rogerebert.com says it's late as far as movie goes - not so much King's novel), it could have been so much better.
The cell phone technology offers the story a different twist in the zombie horror genre - a genre I think is dying off...no pun intended. But the movie just falls flat in its delivery leaving wide-open holes in crucial plot points. John Cusack seemed like, well, a frustrated John Cusack. And at times, Samuel L. Jackson just seemed uninterested in what was happening.
The storyline in general brought King's book The Stand. The Raggedy Man made me think of Randall Flagg from the same book.
The suspense started strong in the airport, only to pathetically waft to the ground like a dead leaf anxious to be done with.
I shouldn't have to ask Google to explain the story to me just to make sure I understood what I just watched. And I think, despite a few moments of gore, horror fans will take the two-hour run time to treat themselves to a snooze.

Ambiguous Stephen King