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Last year, Colin Farrell played a man stuck in a Phone Booth desperately trying to save innocent people from a sniper. Now, Chris Evans, William H. Macy, and Kim Basinger star in a variation on the same idea. In Cellular, Evans plays Ryan, a young man who receives a random distress call from a kidnapped woman (Basinger), who begs him to help her. Ryan proceeds to use his versatile little phone for clever endeavors to try and save her and her family. It sounds like little more than a clever, feature-length marketing ploy. But critics seem to be enjoying the film, even if they admit that it's rather shallow fun.

Michael Elliott (Movie Parables) calls it "an entertaining though largely implausible action/adventure film. Though flawed in its logic and plausibility, it is nonetheless clever in how it incorporates all the features and frustrations that cell phone users know all too well: Loss of signal strength, dying batteries, call waiting, and crossed lines all become inconveniences that take on life or death meaning as Ryan frantically tries to keep Jessica on the line."

Agnieszka Tennant (Christianity Today Movies) writes, "Neither Macy nor Basinger nor the intriguing setup nor the bursts of situational wit can rescue David R. Ellis's action thriller from joining the category of movies that are so bad they're good. I guess one can put it in more encouraging terms: it's a good bad movie."

"Cellular is a smart, funny, fast-paced thriller," says Tom Neven (Plugged In). "It contains positive messages about the strength of family, a mother's love and courageously helping total strangers, even at great personal risk. Unfortunately, a little sexual humor, a gusher of foul language and some explicit violence will probably cause many to hang up on this effort."

Mainstream critics aren't terribly impressed, but they're giving the film good marks compared to several other new releases.

Paul W.S. Anderson, director of this year's much-maligned sci-fi fiasco Alien Vs. Predator, was responsible for the first big screen adaptation of the video game Resident Evil. Milla Jovovich and Michelle Rodriguez starred in the flick, and Jovovich is back now for a sequel, written by Anderson but directed by newcomer Alexander Witt.

Resident Evil: Apocalypse concerns a woman (Jovovich) trying to deal with great civil unrest—think zombies, mutants, and rampaging monsters—in a place called Raccoon City. Suffice it to say that her methods favor heavy artillery over diplomacy.

Some moviegoers are actually having a good time chuckling at the sheer lunacy of its indulgent, illogical, hyperviolent spectacle. But religious press film critics stopped just short of calling the film a sign of the pending apocalypse.

Bob Smithouser (Plugged In) calls it "a dumb, obnoxious horror film. Hunting for subtext amongst the explicit content would be like fishing a penny out of a public toilet. What makes matters worse, the ending leaves things wide open for yet another sequel."

Peter T. Chattaway (Christianity Today Movies) recommends you wait for a different Zombie movie: "For a brand-new zombie movie that is more emotionally involving and a heck of a lot funnier, you'd be better off watching the British import Shaun of the Dead; it proves that just because a film is about the undead, that doesn't mean the film itself has to feel like it was made by the undead or for the undead."

David DiCerto (Catholic News Service) says this is an "apocalyptically preposterous and unremittingly violent sequel. This Dawn of the Dead clone is devoid of anything remotely resembling narrative, character development or redeeming moral value. Instead, Witt opts for nonstop, lavishly violent action sequences—including one in a church—which ultimately go nowhere, and are as tedious as they are gratuitous."

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September (Web-only) 2004, Vol. 48