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The Fly
(directed by David Cronenberg, 1986)
The Fly was a favorite movie of mine when I was a little kid -- we're talking really young, before I started kindergarten. Didn't understand it the way an adult does at the time, but I knew what was going on -- a man (Jeff Goldberg) made a big mistake when he stepped inside a machine which tainted his body and started changing him into a fly man. For some reason, I never really bothered to watch The Fly as an adult until now, so it's been YEARS since I saw it. I may have seen pieces here and there, but this is the first time I actually sat down and experienced it in a way that was almost new, and yet wasn't at all. I have seen the sequel, The Fly II, but it's been at least twenty years since I even saw that film.
Jeff Goldblum (no relation to Whoopi Goldberg) stars as Seth Brundle, a brainy science prodigy who almost won the Nobel Peace Price at the age of twenty. One night at a science conference, he meets a woman named Veronica (Geena Davis) who is interested in what kind of scientific research he's been engaged in at home. He takes her back to his warehouse/home where he has a lab and everything. She sees two bizarre egg shaped pods with doors sitting around the place -- telephone booths, she jokingly refers to them as. But no, they're not telephone booths. They're Brundle's secret pet project -- teleportation devices. Put something in one pod, fiddle around with a computer for a second, and BOOM, the item teleports to the other pod. He demonstrates this using her panty hose.
She reveals herself to be a journalist, which freaks him out -- he's not ready to share what he's got with the world, yet. For starters, it's not perfected -- the pods can teleport inanimate objects, but it's ghastly and horrific and totally unfit to teleport living things. A test with a baboon demonstrates this when it goes horribly wrong.
But then, another test, another baboon, and suddenly Brundle thinks he's got the teleportation pods finally working right and finally able to allow teleportation between living things -- including animals. After getting drunk one night after Veronica leaves his place to take care of some bad business, Brundle gets inside his teleportation pod and teleports to the other one -- but unknown to him, a fly has flown in the pod and decided to journey along with him. And the computer which decodes and recodes the objects inside the pod makes a very big mistake.
I thought The Fly started out really great but progressed to a special effects spectacle that cheapened the movie and made it seem more lame than frightening. Cronenberg has an obsession with THE FLESH and anatomy and I see nothing wrong with this, but too many special effects sequences with the fly and with other things made this bizarre movie a little too cartoony for me. At one point, I laughed at the lunacy of Brundle losing parts of his body as he transformed into a fly, but that's actually a positive, I think.
It seemed strange to see Geena Davis act in a David Cronenberg movie for some reason. His material is outlandish and very sexual and she seems very outside his kind of turf to me. It's almost surreal to see her and Jeff Goldblum together in a movie like this... and not something lighter and easier to handle like 1988's Earth Girls Are Easy.
I'm not sure what to think. I recommend checking out The Fly sometime if you've never seen it -- it definitely wasn't boring. I did feel very uneasy and bothered watching it, though. The movie has a way of getting under your skin with its strong focus on our identity in the animal kingdom as humans. You might become more self aware of your own limitations living inside your body. The film is about playing and experimenting with your human condition -- and how advancement or transgression could lead to your destruction and doom. The Fly warns us that when you think you're ready for something, you really might not be.
(directed by David Cronenberg, 1986)
The Fly was a favorite movie of mine when I was a little kid -- we're talking really young, before I started kindergarten. Didn't understand it the way an adult does at the time, but I knew what was going on -- a man (Jeff Goldberg) made a big mistake when he stepped inside a machine which tainted his body and started changing him into a fly man. For some reason, I never really bothered to watch The Fly as an adult until now, so it's been YEARS since I saw it. I may have seen pieces here and there, but this is the first time I actually sat down and experienced it in a way that was almost new, and yet wasn't at all. I have seen the sequel, The Fly II, but it's been at least twenty years since I even saw that film.
Jeff Goldblum (no relation to Whoopi Goldberg) stars as Seth Brundle, a brainy science prodigy who almost won the Nobel Peace Price at the age of twenty. One night at a science conference, he meets a woman named Veronica (Geena Davis) who is interested in what kind of scientific research he's been engaged in at home. He takes her back to his warehouse/home where he has a lab and everything. She sees two bizarre egg shaped pods with doors sitting around the place -- telephone booths, she jokingly refers to them as. But no, they're not telephone booths. They're Brundle's secret pet project -- teleportation devices. Put something in one pod, fiddle around with a computer for a second, and BOOM, the item teleports to the other pod. He demonstrates this using her panty hose.
She reveals herself to be a journalist, which freaks him out -- he's not ready to share what he's got with the world, yet. For starters, it's not perfected -- the pods can teleport inanimate objects, but it's ghastly and horrific and totally unfit to teleport living things. A test with a baboon demonstrates this when it goes horribly wrong.
But then, another test, another baboon, and suddenly Brundle thinks he's got the teleportation pods finally working right and finally able to allow teleportation between living things -- including animals. After getting drunk one night after Veronica leaves his place to take care of some bad business, Brundle gets inside his teleportation pod and teleports to the other one -- but unknown to him, a fly has flown in the pod and decided to journey along with him. And the computer which decodes and recodes the objects inside the pod makes a very big mistake.
I thought The Fly started out really great but progressed to a special effects spectacle that cheapened the movie and made it seem more lame than frightening. Cronenberg has an obsession with THE FLESH and anatomy and I see nothing wrong with this, but too many special effects sequences with the fly and with other things made this bizarre movie a little too cartoony for me. At one point, I laughed at the lunacy of Brundle losing parts of his body as he transformed into a fly, but that's actually a positive, I think.
It seemed strange to see Geena Davis act in a David Cronenberg movie for some reason. His material is outlandish and very sexual and she seems very outside his kind of turf to me. It's almost surreal to see her and Jeff Goldblum together in a movie like this... and not something lighter and easier to handle like 1988's Earth Girls Are Easy.
I'm not sure what to think. I recommend checking out The Fly sometime if you've never seen it -- it definitely wasn't boring. I did feel very uneasy and bothered watching it, though. The movie has a way of getting under your skin with its strong focus on our identity in the animal kingdom as humans. You might become more self aware of your own limitations living inside your body. The film is about playing and experimenting with your human condition -- and how advancement or transgression could lead to your destruction and doom. The Fly warns us that when you think you're ready for something, you really might not be.