Excellent Remake - Better Than The Original

Rating: 8/10 (18 October 2005)

THE FLY (1986) is a great film on all counts. Cronenberg was in top form as director of this film, and his style is all over it. The story concerns Seth Brundle, played by Jeff Goldblum (who to be honest, I usually HATE, but was actually very good in this film...)who is a scientist working on a teleportation machine. He has various degrees of success and is finally ready to test his project on a human subject, and decides to use himself as the first human test subject. Everything seems OK til Seth realizes that there was fly in the transporter with him, and that they were "combined" during the teleportation process...
THE FLY hits the mark on every level. The acting, even from Goldblum (did I mention, I normally hate that guy?...) and Geena Davis (another actress that I normally HATE...) who plays Brundle's love interest, are dead on. At first it's fascinating, even fun to watch Brundle's transformation from man to "fly-thing" (the extra strength and agility, etc...) until the process becomes accelerated and Brundle starts losing body parts in various gory ways...and there is a good bit of "gross" stuff in this one. I remember this film being considered pretty shocking for a theatrical release when it first came out and with good reason. Cronenberg, who never really shied away from showing disturbing images, really went all the way with this one. An excellent film all-around - if you like this one, check out THE BROOD, my personal favorite Cronenberg film. Definitely recommended 8.5/10 for THE FLY