For Jessica and Ryan the day started like every other day. Jessica who is a high school science teacher and mother who leads a peaceful life sends her son off to school with no second thought just like any other day. Ryan who is young an impulsive spends his morning at the beach looking at women in bikinis and trying to get back together with his ex-girlfriend. But both of their lives are about to be turned upside down when Jessica is kidnapped from her home by five unknown assailants and taken to a mysterious location. Fearful for her life and completely in the dark as to her abductors' motives, Jessica manages to patch together a shattered telephone and secretly place a call to an unknown number in a last-ditch attempt to save herself, that call makes its way to Ryan. Ryan, the carefree young man who answers the panicked call, suddenly finds himself Jessica's last hope as the random wrong number to his cell phone sends him into a high-stakes race against time to save a Jessica’s life. With no knowledge of Jessica Martin other than her hushed, panicked voice on the other end of the tenuous cell phone connection, Ryan is quickly thrown into a world of deception and murder on his frantic search to find and save her. Jessica's life is in his hands, but what is waiting for him on the other side of the line, and what will it cost him to find out?

I saw a quote by another prominent reviewer about how Cellular was like Phone Booth but on the run, and I couldn’t agree more. That simple blurb describes the movie better than I ever could. Except for one thing, I did not think the movie had the intensity of Phone Booth, as it did not see that Kim Basinger was panicked enough or even in the moment all the time. Nor did it seem like Chris Evans was really trying to help her full heartedly. That is not to say I didn’t like the film, because I did but it just seemed at times they could have made the movie more intense. If one thing Phone Booth accomplished was the level of intensity without the characters ever really moving, while in Cellular the characters are always moving but never seeming to be that much of a hurry. So for me because they did not capture the audience like they should have, the movie was only good while it could have been great. In today’s world of technology things like this are possible, and that makes the movie more real but not necessarily any better. I think the blame falls on Kim Basinger and not necessarily Chris Evans, as he seemed the more reluctant participant and not the one in danger. The movie also has quite a comedic backbone to it, which is mostly why I liked it, as it is action packed all the while making you laugh.
3.5 stars out of 5