Jul
6
I’ve actually never seen the original version of “The Fly.” The David Cronenberg remake, however, is one of my favorite films from the ’80s. It’s a fantastic piece of science fiction and a truly moving exploration of terminal illness.
In the film, physicist Seth Brudle (Jeff Goldblum) invents a means of teleportation. When he attempts to teleport himself, a common housefly becomes an unwitting participant in the experiment. Brundle and the fly are fused together at the genetic level. At first he believes teleportation has somehow improved him physically. His strength, agility and fondness for candy bars have all been increased. But then he begins to transform into “Brundlefly,” a gruesome hybrid of man and insect. And his girlfriend Ronnie (Geena Davis) soon finds out she’s pregnant.
The sci-fi elements of the film don’t overshadow the human story. This film is about dying of cancer or of AIDS, a fairly unknown and misunderstood illness when the film was released in 1986. It’s not a movie about a guy who turns into a giant bug and kills people. Brudlefly remains sympathetic to the end, even when he’s regurgitating acid onto the limbs of Ronnie’s creep of an ex-boyfriend, Stathis Borans (John Getz). You genuinely care about Brudlefly. Goldblum’s that brilliant in the role, buried beneath piles of malformed foam latex. He still exudes the agony, the fear and the macabre humor of a man who’s dying of an incurable disease.
Now it’s an opera. I’ve never seen an opera before, but I would absolutely see “The Fly: The Opera.” After all, it’s not “The Fly 2: The Opera.” Ain’t It Cool News has a mixed-positive review from the Paris premiere last week. It doesn’t open in Los Angeles until September. Cronenberg and Howard Shore, who composed the music for the film, are involved. If this is a cynical cash-in, at least the right cynics are involved. Unfortunately, Goldblum isn’t reprising his role as Brudle. I’m not sure if he has the pipes for it. But how does a fly sing anyway?
-Brad Lohan
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[…] I pretty much lied through my teeth when I said I was going to see “The Fly: The Opera.” The reviews have been unkind, and […]