muted

Cell

Rating4.4 /10
20161 h 38 m
United States
32475 people rated

When a mysterious cell phone signal causes apocalyptic chaos, an artist is determined to reunite with his young son in New England.

Action
Adventure
Horror

User Reviews

Elsa Majimbo

15/06/2025 10:44
Okay, people are going to tell you that this movie is dumb and corny and frustrating. Don't listen to them. Admittedly, they're absolutely right, but don't listen to them anyway. This movie is the closest we're going to get to a sequel to Maximum Overdrive from Stephen King, and it's actually pretty close. Instead of a bunch of disparate stragglers surviving in a world where humanity is overrun by machines being controlled by an alien force, we get a bunch of disparate stragglers surviving in a world where humanity is overrun by people being controlled by an alien force. So it also dips into Walking Dead knock-off territory, where everyone who uses their phone basically becomes a fast zombie; but on the plus side, this still has a lot of King vibes in it. Do you ever think about horror movies after seeing them and realize, if you view the film from the evil supernatural side of things, its motives make no sense? Like, "if the demon spirit wanted to possess the little girl before anyone could figure out what was going on and stop it, why did it spend the first 45 minutes terrorizing the babysitter and attracting needless attention to itself?" Well, this movie is like that: if you think about whatever mysterious intelligence is behind what's happening, what it decides to make the people it controls do doesn't really add up. But this movie goes the extra step, where you don't even have to do the thought experiment and shift perspectives to see that this movie regularly makes no sense. It's like King wrote down his dream and these people filmed it. And that's kinda cool if you're prepared to view this film like Kurosawa's Dreams or Fulci's The Beyond. If broken and contradictory logic is going to bother you, you're going to be kicking a hole in your monitor. And for all the fun King brings to his work, there's also his usual flaws. In this case: hokey characters. DJ Liquid? The "you're cute" lady? The King Of the Internet? But it's also kind of charming in a "King's our lovable grandpa who writes these crazy stories" kinda way, and this film gets past them easily enough with plenty of fast paced action and shocking violence. Other pros: Sam Jackson and John Cusack give their roles more weight than the script deserves. You actually care if they survive and worry for them in a way most lesser films don't manage. Stacy Keach shows up for a bit of fun, too. The story's also ambitious, playing with big ideas and isn't afraid to get pretty dark and cynical, which is nice to see in a more mainstream horror film with a name cast. Other cons: Most of the down to Earth effects are fine (zombies, gore), but it tries to depict some very big things that clearly just aren't in its budget. There's a scene right in the very beginning where an airplane explodes, which they really should've left off-camera, because it really looks super fake. And some shots in the film's climax look like a cartoon. Look, this is a heavy-handed movie for technophobes. Everyone who uses their cellphone turns into a mindless zombie. Characters walk through a brand new movie theater with a giant sign advertising "now with digital Projection," and then immediately into a drive-in movie lot. Keach gives a big dramatic reading to the line, "you can't stop progress, but you're never too old to fight it" before firing a bow and arrow. There's nothing subtle for miles around, and I'm sure we all know someone, probably older, who'll applaud the scene where people throw their smart phones into a fire, thinking finally someone else understands that change and technology are evil. But for the rest of us, it's a pretty amusing, entertaining time so long as you're willing to not question anything it throws at you. Fast paced, loads of thrills, our protagonists walk around with armfuls of weapons and ammo; and yet the film takes itself seriously enough that it never starts to feel like a bad joke. Silly sure, but earnest. All it needed was a rockin' AC/DC soundtrack.

adebayo abayomi

13/05/2025 08:53
lsaslzlz l like llzw

Gift Nwankwo

12/05/2025 22:57
tuugy

2KD

12/05/2025 03:14
Cell_360P

Moula

18/07/2024 05:27
Cell-720P

_𝘯𝘢𝘫𝘶𝘭𝘪𝘢❤️‍🔥

15/07/2024 10:12
Cell-480P

hasona_al

12/09/2022 05:42
Come one guys it is a pretty decent movie here ... Great actors and the story is good too. Maybe I missed something here but for me the mocie is a clear 10 ! Maybe I am too old fashioned here ... Love it !

leticiaimon5@gmail.com

12/09/2022 05:42
Cell is a 2016 adaptation of the Stephen King novel with the same name, it's directed by Tod Williams and it starrs John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson and Isabelle Fuhrman. Well this is a very dull movie, with dull performances by everyone, even Cusack and Samuel Jackson, two really great actors. The story is uninteresting and generic with no real suspense or horror and to be perfectly honest a think the zombies or phoners or whatever it is they're called look really goofy with their mouths open. There's no explanation for what happens wich doesn't make the film worse but it sure makes it more disapointing at the end, at least for me. I have yet to read the novel so I don't know if it's much better than the adaptation or equally bad but either way it doesn't change the fact that Cell is a pretty dreadfull film. 3.2/10

ستار سعد-SattarSaad

12/09/2022 05:42
Only giving out 2 stars because i liked the acting but it missed so much of everything else Story At beggining i was enthusiastic about the story, but as soon as i started seeing missing story pieces i was getting sceptical. But still at the end i hoped they would explain more. And they didnt so i was realy dissapointed in that. Story seems like good at times but then they add those mind twisting parts that dont make any sense. Characters Clay was boring, like realy boring. Nothing new or exciting about him. All he wanted to do was find his son, instead of accepting reality that he was gone. Tom McCourt i liked him alot, he had accepted reality, was thinking like i would in zombie apocalypse. Alice was awesome, since she was traumatized about how she killed her mother and then later on by bad luck she died. Im not gonna write about the other characters since they werent much of important in the story except the Ray, but hes screen time was short. Not good, wouldnt reccomend

oforiwaapep

12/09/2022 05:42
This film is plainly bad. The acting isn't great nor horrible, but the plot is mediocre and corny. I didn't like the premise of the film, but I went along with it, I thought I would give it a chance. People go crazy when they receive a phone call because aliens are messing up phone calls. Yeah this is basically the plot, I'm not joking. I decided I would give it a try because of the two main actors, Samuel Jackson and John Cusack, but the script was honestly awful. The plot isn't interesting, there are no scenes that catch your interest fully and by the end you're just bored. The worst part is the ending. It's pointless and makes the entire film pointless. Therefore, when you get to it, the only emotion you have is anger for having wasted your time in a pointless film. It's not even funnily bad, it's just bad.
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