Godsend

Godsend is the stuff nightmares are made of. Like the one where you go to the movie theater and spend $8.50, only to get stuck with a mind-numbing “thriller” in which absolutely nothing happens. The haunting begins when a young couple (Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos) lose their son (Cameron Bright) to a freak car accident just after his eighth birthday. While at the funeral, they’re approached by a creepy doctor (Robert De Niro), who offers the return of their son through cloning. Eight years later Son II starts acting up: cursing at his parents, spitting on his teachers, murdering his classmates—the usual for that age. As his demented episodes mount, so do the misused horror movie tactics: creepy nightmares featuring children screaming for help; long…slow…walks; useless “boo!” flashes. Like most scary movies, you know the central premise will only lead to trouble, but you sit through it anyway with the expectation that something remotely interesting will happen. No luck here, with a PG-13 rating restricting any real violence from going down and any swimsuit model shirts from lifting up. Add to this laundry list the cold-blooded murder of any remaining suspense when the ending is revealed by a secondary character 15 minutes before the closing credits. Let the debate over cloning end here.