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"&amp;gt; Interview: Vincenzo Natali Adrien Brody and Sarah Polley (Dawn Of The Dead) play Frankenstein to a human-animal hybrid in Splice, but this giant leap happens without the usual scenes of people running and screaming. In contrast to those big-budget sci-fi flicks, writer-director Vincenzo Natali (Cypher) keeps a tight focus on the way relationships evolve between the trio. It is very much an independent film yet the smaller scale affords Natali the chance to venture way, way out into sometimes disturbing territory. It is also touching, funny, revolting and ridiculous, but never less than intriguing. As well as being lab partners, Clive (Brody) and Elsa (Polley) have been living together for years and the idea of children is casually batted around. It&amp;#039;s mostly Clive doing the batting though while Elsa tries to fend him off with shop talk. They&amp;#039;re about to unveil a fleshy blob of assorted animal DNA that will revolutionise medical research into all manner of diseases, but the duo have another pet project under wraps. They have spliced animal and human DNA to create an embryo. Clive gets cold feet though, reluctant to see it through to the birth, but Elsa gets her way because, apparently, she always does. The result of the experiment is Dren (&amp;#039;nerd&amp;#039; spelt backwards), a horrific looking creature that bursts into life in a scene headily reminiscent of Alien. Very sensibly Clive wants to kill the bugger, but wouldn&amp;#039;t you know it: Elsa suddenly has an attack of maternal instinct. In the first half of the film, much of the action unfolds inside cool shuttered rooms at the research facility where Elsa monitors Dren&amp;#039;s rapid development and dresses her in frilly things. The enclosed setting nicely heightens the tension growing between Clive and Elsa, almost mirroring the jealousy of a new father as he watches his wife fall in love with somebody (or some &amp;#039;thing&amp;#039;) else. Things get decidedly more creepy as Dren grows up and is played by Delphine Chan\u00C3\u00A9ac with all of her ethereal beauty crossed with the features of a Sphynx cat (including long tail and pouncing legs). She becomes too big, too powerful and too shriekingly loud to stay hidden at the facility so Clive and Elsa take her to a barn-house in the woods where Dren gets in touch with her animal side. She hunts and kills, but it&amp;#039;s her sexual awakening that takes this film into a higher gear and produces some of the more visceral scenes. Clive becomes the focus of her lust, but what is more disturbing is growing evidence that Clive is also attracted to her/it. Natali throws in a couple of extra twists which mean this frisson has earth-shattering consequences, but so much bad judgement shown by two such clever people does finally stretch the bounds of credibility. The animal side takes over for all involved in the latter stages, but rather than being part of a valid social commentary it just feels like an excuse to relapse into the conventions of a low-budget creature feature. It is the sincerity of Brody and Polley&amp;#039;s performances that keeps the ending from getting bogged down in clich\u00C3\u00A9s, but it&amp;#039;s also the dry sense of humour that Brody occasionally brings to these moments that temper the hysteria. Fortunately, after all the howling and growling and carnage is done, Splice does remain a very human film.  &amp;gt; What do you think of the movie? Share your views "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/movies/review/a238581/splice/>