Disclaimer: There are two parts to this review, the first is a brief, thematic review without spoilers and the second is more in-depth and contains spoilers (and a lot of useless extra crap).

Spoilerless Review

A noble (or maybe underhanded) attempt at selling a film as a horror flick while it's actually sci-fi/thriller/drama. To be honest, I hate horror movies with a passion that burns like Old Spice in my eyes, so when my wife asked me to go with her I of course consented – but knew that I wasn't in for much. The screenplay is schizophrenic and bounces around between almost 10 different themes, confusing and baffling in between high-points of superb acting and special effects. The movie drags on far too long at the end, becoming an exhausting snore-fest of stock action/horror sequences and losing any soul it may have had. I did learn one important lesson, however, and that is that Sarah Polley is very sexy and very smart. I won't forget that.

HOT

Spoilered Review

Cast of Characters
VINCENZO Natali (Story & Screenplay)
ANTOINETTE Terry Bryant (Story & Screenplay)
DOUG Taylor (Screenplay)

VINCENZO: So, that's it, let's call it a screenplay and get this thing started.

ANTOINETTE: Vincenzo?

VINCENZO: What?

ANTOINETTE: Don't you think the movie should have a few more 'scientists playing God' or 'morally ambiguous experiment' moments? Maybe one of the characters...

VINCENZO: We all ready have several excellent one-liners about the moral implications of...what is it again?

DOUG: Splicing.

VINCENZO: ...splicing, exactly, I mean, it's like a modern Prometheus type of story, we don't need to sell that too much.

ANTOINETTE: I just think it would be really great if we could have a character say something like, 'Should we be doing this? What if it's wrong? Right or wrong? Science? God? Frankenweenie?'

VINCENZO: I love it.

ANTOINETTE: Which character should say it?

VINCENZO: Who cares?

DOUG: I do.

VINCENZO: Shut up Doug, this is our story.

ANTOINETTE: It's edgy – scientists listening to rock music, wearing vests over t-shirts and sporting emo haircuts – no one's ever done anything like this before.

VINCENZO: Do you think Dren being buried is the best place to end the movie?

ANTOINETTE: Of course! What the hell else could we do after that?

VINCENZO: I don't know, it just seems like the audience will expect something else.

ANTOINETTE: Come on, they'll be emotionally exhausted by that point – tacking anything else onto the movie will seem half-assed and cliched.

VINCENZO: I guess you're right.

DOUG: I like the part where Clive and Dren have sex, and then Dren's wings come out, and then her stinger, and then the girl walks in and she's all like...

VINCENZO: Boobs, we have to have boobs in that scene.

ANTOINETTE: I'll make a note of it.

VINCENZO: Well, folks, I think we've got something excellent here.

ANTOINETTE: Should we pack up and go home?

VINCENZO: Sounds good to me.

ANTOINETTE: Do you have a key to lock the room behind us? Are you just going to leave the script on the table?

VINCENZO: Don't worry so much, it'll be fine. It's not like someone's going to come into this room after we're gone, drop acid, pull out some old issues of Penthouse and screw with our script, inserting an extended ending where Dren comes back to life, has a spontaneous and inexplicable sex-change, kills the jackass pencil pusher, kills Clive's brother, pulls Clive into the water, rapes Elsa, is stabbed with a large branch by Clive, comes back to life and kills Clive, is skull-crushed by the woman he/she/it just raped and then dies. We've worked too hard to have a semi-intelligent and almost-thought provoking movie to just end up with a closing shot where Elsa is pregnant with Dren's splice-baby and wants to give birth to it because she's a suddenly-psychotic/money-hungry scientist. No, we'll just leave it unlocked.