Movie - Cell (2016)

Note:  Minor spoilers throughout, will try to keep them to a minimum.  Fair warning.

     Cell is a movie based on the book by Stephen King.  If you read my reviews of the television show 11/22/63 a few months back, then you already know how big a fan I am of Stephen King.  He is my favorite author of all time, and I generally go into his movies a little more optimistic than I should be, as they really have a bit of a hit and miss factor to them over the years.  This one went straight to video on demand, so I did go into it with a little less optimism, but I still feel that it has a strong cast in John Cusack and Samuel L. Jackson, and it is based on one of my more favorite books by Stephen King.
     The movie follows Clay Ridell (played by John Cusack), a graphic novelist who has been having a rocky marriage, but is trying to get his life together.  He just gets back from a big deal with one of his books, and is wanting to visit his wife and son, but the wife is reluctant because of their past.  His phone goes dead while talking to her, but that turns out to be a good thing, as all of a sudden, the airport he is in goes absolutely crazy, as people start attacking each other.  He quickly realizes that it is everyone that was talking on their cell phone, and so he attempts to get out of the airport.  He ends up in the subway under the airport, where he meets Tom McCourt (played by Samuel L. Jackson), and they leave together.  From there, the movie follows Clay's attempts to get to his family to find out if they are okay.
     There are a lot of similarities to the book, but there are also a good bit of differences.  I don't remember Tom playing as big of a role in the book as he did in the movie, but since they had Samuel L. Jackson playing him, it made sense to give him more of a prominent role.  I did think that both of them did well in their roles in the movie, but the supporting cast was subpart for the most part.
     The movie has kind of a B-movie type of feel to it, and I think that was a good thing.  It felt a bit campy, but it never really felt absurd in what was going on.  You could tell that the budget wasn't huge on the movie, but I don't think the movie suffered because of it.  Overall, I felt that the movie was better than most movies that go straight to video on demand or straight to DVD.  I wish there had been a bigger budget to it, as I think they could have really done more with the movie, but given the overall script, I don't know that the movie really warranted it.
     I do think they accomplished what they wanted to accomplish with the movie, and for the most part, I liked the movie.  I was hoping for more, but coming into it with lower expectations than a wider release film, I also wouldn't say I was disappointed.  As I said above, I really liked the book, but the big problem I had with the book was the ending.  They completely changed the ending in the movie (as they normally do with Stephen King books, for better or worse), and I was happy that there was full resolution, but I don't know if the ending was better off or not.  I did feel that the ending was a little bit abrupt, and they should have done a little more with fleshing it out.

My rating for the movie is 6.5/10