A technical marvel, though the characters are ultimately frittered away in favor of shocks...

Rating: 4/10 (25 July 2015)

David Cronenberg's remake of 1958's "The Fly", a solid low-brow horror outing with camp overtones, from George Langelaan's magazine story, never quite takes off. The material is tailor-made for the filmmaker yet, while the shocks are there for the squeamish, the movie is too simple-minded (and too easily wrapped up) for it to be worthwhile to anyone but indiscriminating fans of the horror genre. Nerdy, dateless scientist Jeff Goldblum (excellent) brings home a pretty journalist from a scientific convention and shows her his teleportation pods...this could be the start of something big! He has managed to break down the molecular structure of inanimate objects and transfer them from one pod to another. Unfortunately, he's having trouble transferring live matter (a monkey quickly goes splat in the film's most horrific scene). We never learn how Goldblum manages to figure out the problem and fix it, but soon he's climbing into the machine himself--along with a stowaway fly. Goldblum's transformation is well done, and Cronenberg admirably takes his time building the foundation which will lead us to the showdown, but that's all the film is: a build-up. There's no rush of exhilaration in the denouement because the picture is all technique, mechanical--the love story between Goldblum and Geena Davis is also half-hearted (as if Cronenberg didn't believe in it) . A huge financial success. Chris Walas & Stephan Dupuis deservedly won Academy Awards for makeup. Followed by "The Fly II" (with a new cast and director) in 1989. ** from ****