Jeff Goldblum only seems to fit a role if he’s playing a slightly strange scientist. In The Fly, he’s a physicist who develops a teleportation device. Having met a journalist who initially wants a story, but eventually falls in love with him, he manages to work out how to successfully transport living matter. Without turning it inside-out like the baboon it didn’t work on…
He later gets drunk having jumped to conclusions about his new girlfriend’s relationship with her boss, and decides to try his telepods on himself. Success! Only he accidently fuses his DNA with that of a fly also in the telepod.
Over the coming weeks he gradually becomes more and more fly-like, eventually being able to walk on walls and vomit acid with which to digest his food. He ends up a monster, with a terrible theory on how to resolve the problem.
So these days, some of the effects (particularly later in the film when he’s more fly and less man) are rubbish, but the film remains amazing. And, for once, it’s far better than the original film it is (pretty loosely, really) based on.
Verdict: 4/5
