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Good start, but then it gets ruined

Not sure how, but this is easily one of the best movies all summer. Multiple levels of funny, never takes itself seriously, super colorful, and creative.

Although I seem to have had higher expectations than I thought, the movie is super entertaining.

It is neither dumb nor smart enough to be fun, and spends way too much time with its boring human characters.

Aside from a modestly effective twist near the end of the movie regarding the real identity of the child "Adam," this was a bland movie pretty much the whole way through. "Adam" applies to two characters, actually. The first being the child killed in a car accident near the beginning of the movie, and the second being his "replacement." After the first Adam's death, his parents are approached by a famous doctor (played by Robert De Niro in one of his more forgettable performances) who offers to use the knowledge that he's gained through laboratory experiments to clone Adam. The result is pretty much what you'd expect in this kind of movie. The new Adam seems to have memories of his previous life and seems from the beginning just a little "off." You realize that there's more going on here than meets the eye - the figure of Zachary (the boy in Adam's dreams) really doesn't seem to connect with the story, but to me the disconnect was so great that I settled for remaining confused rather than even trying to connect Zachary with anything. The movie tries to frighten with assorted chills, but never really succeeds in that regard. The twist (as I mentioned above) is modestly effective (I hadn't seen it coming) but everything that came before was so bland that I really didn't care by the time the twist came out. The ending was too open ended - there were at least two possibilities left open for continuing the story in a sequel that just seemed too wide open. Fortunately, the sequel never came. I'd have appreciated a bit more closure to this.This is a mediocre movie at best. I always give a bit of extra credit for a twist that catches me off guard, but it's still mediocre.

While "Godsend" is no masterpiece, one cannot deny that the subject matter of this film; human cloning/genetic engineering is fascinating stuff indeed. This film is actually nicely crafted, and raises a lot of questions about the scientific and moral issues of cell cloning to recreate a 'duplicate' of an existing person. Who would not be tempted to accept an offer to have their recently deceased child returned to them, by some scientific miracle? Unfortunately for one young couple, their savior, (who comes in the form of a brilliant doctor portrayed effectively by Robert Deniro) has a hidden agenda of his own. The young son is killed at the age of 8. For eight years their child appears fine, until the anniversary of the cloned boy's death. Plagued by strange memories of his own death, the child, Adam begins to sink into a world of scary and confusing dreams and hallucinations, hinting at his previous life, and violent death. "Godsend" is not a flashy, bloody horror movie, but rather a slow moving, cerebral mystery/horror, that makes the viewer think, and wonder. Some might call "Godsend" Hollywood's "anti-cloning propaganda film," but whatever the purpose of this film, it is interesting and thought-provoking all the same. Worth a look for those interested in the subject matter.

After he gets a new pair of sneakers, older-looking eight-year-old Cameron Bright (as Adam Duncan) gets hit, and killed, by a car. His devastated parents, teacher Greg Kinnear (as Paul) and photographer Rebecca Romijn-Stamos (as Jessie), receive an invitation to clone young Mr. Bright, from doctor Robert De Niro (as Richard Wells). Ms. Romijn-Stamos was once Mr. De Niro's undergraduate student. Since the cloning procedure is illegal, Mr. De Niro requests the family relocate to "Riverton"; thus, friends and neighbors won't see the duplicate Bright growing up all over again.Suddenly, it's eight years later… Sporting a different hairstyle, Romijn-Stamos has one very sexy underwear scene. But, more important to the storyline, cloned son "Adam" begins to act creepy. He gets into trouble with peers at school, and spits in the teacher's face. "Godsend" De Niro and the DVD sleeve help explain the problem: "Reaching the age at which the original Adam died, the new Adam begins to change, and a new sinister personality emerges." It's all unoriginal and nonsensical. But, director Nick Hamm, the sets, locations, and Mr. Kinnear's lead performance are good.***** Godsend (4/30/04) Nick Hamm ~ Greg Kinnear, Cameron Bright, Rebecca Romijn, Robert De Niro

The post-millennial "I'll take any role" version of Robert De Niro continues in this, an increasingly nonsensical "thriller".Almost like two films stuck together, what begins as a decently acted but cheaply shot tale of cloning emerges into a silly, highly derivative "jump and scare" runaround. By the time we manage to trudge to the second half of the film the thesping has become so bad that even De Niro is being acted off the screen by a candle. Slow and lacking in genuine innovation or originality, this only serves to remind us that the actor who appeared in Taxi Driver and Raging Bull now seemingly has a large mortgage to pay off.