Godsend

The teacher Pauld Duncan (Greg Kinnear), the photographer Jessie Duncan (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) and their eight years old son Adam Duncan (Cameron Bright) composes a simple but very happy medium class family. On the day after his eighth birthday, Adam is hit and killed by a car, shaking the stability of the Duncan's family. Some days later, a mysterious doctor Richard Wells (Robert De Niro) approaches to the couple and proposes to make a clone of their deceased son. A new Adam is born, but after his eighth birthday, the boy has horrible nightmares and a weird behavior at school. The reproduction process hides a deep secret, which affects the life of the Duncans. "Godsend" was a great deception for me, since I expected much more from this film. The first three quarters have some flaws, but is scary and hooks the attention of the viewer. However, the conclusion of the story is horrible! I believe that even the director Nick Hamm was not satisfied with the end of the movie, since the American DVD presents four (4) alternative endings, which one of them worse than the original commercial and moralist one. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Enviado" ("The Envoy")

Aside from a modestly effective twist near the end of the movie regarding the real identity of the child "Adam," this was a bland movie pretty much the whole way through. "Adam" applies to two characters, actually. The first being the child killed in a car accident near the beginning of the movie, and the second being his "replacement." After the first Adam's death, his parents are approached by a famous doctor (played by Robert De Niro in one of his more forgettable performances) who offers to use the knowledge that he's gained through laboratory experiments to clone Adam. The result is pretty much what you'd expect in this kind of movie. The new Adam seems to have memories of his previous life and seems from the beginning just a little "off." You realize that there's more going on here than meets the eye - the figure of Zachary (the boy in Adam's dreams) really doesn't seem to connect with the story, but to me the disconnect was so great that I settled for remaining confused rather than even trying to connect Zachary with anything. The movie tries to frighten with assorted chills, but never really succeeds in that regard. The twist (as I mentioned above) is modestly effective (I hadn't seen it coming) but everything that came before was so bland that I really didn't care by the time the twist came out. The ending was too open ended - there were at least two possibilities left open for continuing the story in a sequel that just seemed too wide open. Fortunately, the sequel never came. I'd have appreciated a bit more closure to this.

This is a mediocre movie at best. I always give a bit of extra credit for a twist that catches me off guard, but it's still mediocre.

I guess this film didn't really grip me. You knew from the start where the film was heading, but it seemed to take its sweet time about getting there. Perhaps that's why I found myself nodding off several times, only to be awoken by the obligatory, and repeated use of, shock tactics throughout the film.

I can't really think of anything positive to say about this film, but neither can I say anything greatly negative. It was neither good, nor bad. In fact, watching it was very much like being trapped in limbo. There was little to stimulate the audience's minds through most of the movie.

It's also irritating to see Hollywood moralising about the evils of cloning through the use of film. I'd hesitate to say it was right, but the last thing reasoned debate on the subject needs is idiot screenwriters cashing in on public fears (and fears that are generated by media misrepresentation, at that) and adding more fuel to the fire. What next, a movie about people turning into flies because they ate genetically modified food crops?

This film isn't very good and you won't be seeing it twice even if you do have the foolishness, like me, to watch it once. Lets just hope that this is one film that Hollywood decides NOT to clone in the future.

What can I say about Godsend that hasn't already been said? Probably not much. It was just so...blah. I'm convinced that there could have been a good movie here. I mean Greg Kinnear, Rebecca Romijn, and Robert Deniro! Come on! This should have been a much better film. The premise was good: a couple lose their only son and are given a chance to bring him back through the possibly amoral process of cloning. If they would have listened to Jud Crandall they would have realized that "sometimes dead is better." It was just terribly hard to sit through and the ending was really lame. I have to blame the writer. You know why? Because there are 4 alternate endings on the DVD and they all suck too. Either he just didn't know how to end it or perhaps the studio wasn't pleased. Either way, it's completely avoidable.

This film to me was pretty good. The performances were strong, it had enough jumpy parts to have me screaming, and the plot was surprising. This is one of the few horror movies I've seen lately that, instead of slashing and slicing its way through a pointless gore fest (which are fun by the way, just not great movies), is one that you may actually still be talking about by next week.

Starring Rebecca Romijn-Stamos, Greg Kinnear, and Robert DeNiro, Godsend is the chilling thriller about cloning. Jessie (Stamos) and Paul (Kinnear) Duncan are a happily married couple with an 8 year old son. One day their son is tragically killed when he is hit by a car. The devastated couple are then approached by Dr. Richard Wells (DeNiro), who claims he can help them by cloning to make an exact copy of their late son. Months later the Duncans are a family again with their new baby. Everything is going fine- until Adam reaches his 8th birthday, the time when the original Adam was killed. Suddenly it is a race to help their son while trying to survive before it's too late.

This gripping thriller is a fun yet interesting film to watch with your friends. I thought it was overall a good movie with a great cast.

*** out of 4