My favourite film of all time, an amazing achievement!

Rating: Null/10 (22 August 2001)

Quite frankly, this is an exceptional movie. The highly controversial, shocking and stunning visions and taboos of Canadian director David Cronenberg had never been very successful outside of the inevitable cult following he acquired from such body/horror classics as "Shivers (1974)" and "Rabid (1976)." These earlier films had established him as a master of shock, flinging flesh, sex and gore at the screen while dealing with themes that would become staples of Cronenberg's filmmaking career; the transformation of the human body from one form to another, mankind's uneasy relationship with science and medicine, and general disgust at the condition of the human body.
When offered the opportunity to remake the 1958 B-movie "The Fly," Cronenberg could hardly refuse. The film seemed perfectly in tune with his own trademark obsessions (a scientist is genetically fused with a fly as he is teleporting himself in his new teleportation device, and his mind and bodily lusts and functions are altered drastically). Of course, the reason this stands out from his other, less commercial movies is the fact that the dramatic heart of the movie is concerned with real human emotions and feelings e.g. love, jealousy, despair and wide-eyed wonder. Cronenberg felt he could make his own "romantic story" and succeeded in making "The Fly" stand out from his other films.
The film succeeds spectacularly by combining what makes Cronenberg such a unique and special filmmaker (the film contains a number of gruesome, stomach-churning but stupefyingly intense and powerful moments of gory horror, notably the arm-wrestling sequence and the doughnut scene), with a genuinely touching relationship between the doomed scientist (Jeff Goldblum) and the journalist he hires to record his work (Geena Davis). The film is therefore not just a gross-out Cronenberg classic, but a tragic and moving romantic horror in the Phantom of The Opera/Hunchback of Notre Dame vein.
The film is a cascade of powerful intensity, notably Howard Shore's dramatic and epic music, the scenes of horror which are magnificently shot and executed (the maggot-birth nightmare is too sickening for words) while the climax is about as beautiful and powerful as science fiction and horror has ever been, with Brundle the scientist, now in total ruin having failed in attempting to fuse his diseased body with Veronica, the journalist's. He begs Veronica to shoot him, and the devastating final shot of the twisted corpse, Veronica's mutilated ex-boyfriend Stathos Borans (John Getz) and Veronica uncontrollably crying is about as human and heartbreaking as science fiction has ever been.
It's brilliant, but without the monumental lead performance of Jeff Goldblum as Brundle, it simply would not have been the same, Goldblum's sublime combinations of wide-eyed optimism, pathos and arrogance creating a vitally sympathetic main character, while Davis is also extremely good as Veronica.
In the end, the film, being note perfect Cronenberg, is a note perfect movie, full of style, crushingly brilliant scenes and all the perfect elements, not least the gruesome but astounding make-up.
Absolutely flawless.