Movie Review
Godsend
Godsend poster
By Gareth Von Kallenbach     Published April 30, 2004
US Release: April 30, 2004

Directed by: Nick Hamm
Starring: Greg Kinnear , Rebecca Romijn-Stamos , Robert De Niro , Cameron Bright

PG-13
Running Time: 102 minutes
Domestic Box Office: $14,335,000
D
The narrative is so bad that people were laughing at scenes that were supposed to be tense and gripping.
Besides the legal issues surrounding the practice of human cloning, there are many ethical and moral issues connected, which have caused the pursuit of a human clone to be banned in most nations. In the new film, ?Godsend,? the cold clinic facts of human cloning are presented in human terms when a loving young couple named Paul and Jessie Duncan (Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) lose their only child, Adam (Cameron Bright), in a freak accident the day after his eighth birthday.

Stricken with grief and unlikely to have another child due to complications from Adam?s birth, the couple collapse emotionally. A prominent doctor named Richard Wells (Robert DeNiro) learns of the tragedy and offers to help. At first angry and skeptical over the offer, the Duncan?s soon accept and sever all ties with their former life in order to complete the illegal cloning in secrecy.

Everything seems to go as planned, as Jessie delivers the baby boy who is the exact image of her lost son. Shortly after his eight birthday, the new Adam starts to have horrific dreams that are explained to be night terrors. As the weeks go by, Adam becomes more and more disturbed and potentially dangerous, leading Paul to question what they have done and to suspect that Dr. Wells is hiding something.

What starts off as an interesting premise with a good cast quickly becomes stale, as the narrative of ?Godsend? is so bad that people were laughing at scenes that were supposed to be tense and gripping. The resolution to the story never arrives and the explanations are so ham-fisted that they will have you rolling your eyes in disbelief. The plot is a jumbled mess filled with red herrings, stilted dialogue, and non-sequiters that one has to wonder how a film with such a good cast could have gone so wrong.

The film was painful to sit through and made me wonder on more than one occasion how DeNiro could let himself be attached to such a mess, as it plays out at best like a bad TV movie of the week. Take my advice and avoid this lemon, as ?Godsend? is simply God-awful.
Gareth's Grade: D
Gareth's Overall Grading: 50 graded movies
A6.0%
B44.0%
C40.0%
D10.0%
F0.0%
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