April 30, 2004 | A shameless recycling of clichés and conventions that passed their expiration dates more than two decades ago, Godsend limps into theaters this week as an unwelcome blast from the past. Remember those cookie-cutter demon-child thrillers that trailed The Exorcist and The Omen during the 1970s and early ’80s? Well, director Nick Hamm and screenwriter Mark Bomback obviously remember them, too.
Greg Kinnear and Rebecca Romijn-Stamos star as Paul and Jessie Duncan, doting parents who get only 10 minutes of screen time with Adam (Cameron Bright), their beloved 8-year-old son, before the poor child is killed in a freakish auto mishap. Immediately after the child’s funeral, the grieving couple is approached by Dr. Richard Wells (Robert De Niro), a seemingly compassionate and reasonable-sounding scientist who proposes an ethically dubious (and highly illegal) procedure: He will clone cells of their dead son so Jessie can give birth to him all over again. Jessie readily accepts the risk, Paul overcomes his initial misgivings – and a Faustian bargain is struck.
To ensure the experiment remains secret, Paul and Jessie agree to quit their jobs, sever contacts with friends and family, and resettle in a small town near Wells’ Godsend Fertility Clinic. The cloning is successful – or so it seems – and the Duncans remain in their new home to raise their born-again child. Wells continues to be a frequent visitor and close observer, familiar enough to be greeted as “Uncle Richard” by the new and improved Adam (Cameron Bright again).
After Adam turns 8, however, the youngster starts to exhibit strange, often hostile behavior. (You know, the usual stuff: Spitting at teachers, drowning classmates, refusing to brush after meals, etc.) Worse, he’s troubled by nightmarish visions of burning classrooms, trapped students, lethal claw hammers – and a very bad little boy who looks a lot like him. Wells claims the dreams are nothing more than “night terrors.” (Yeah, right.) Paul suspects otherwise, and his worst fears are entirely justified.
The handsome production values add a touch of class to Godsend. But the surface gloss does little to disguise the inherent pulpiness of the material. And the predictability of the plot undercuts earnest work by fine actors. De Niro doggedly struggles to maintain a façade of benign sincerity during the first half of the film, but his character is so obviously an archetypical mad scientist that his best efforts are inadvertently comical. At least Kinnear (who’s compelling and persuasive in a mostly dead-serious part) is intentionally funny during welcome moments of comic relief. “No matter what he does,” Romijn-Stamos tearfully insists after Adam 2.0 begins to lethally misbehave, “he’s still our son.” Kinnear thoughtfully considers this for a beat, then replies: “You find that comforting right now?”
