You can never underestimate the value of a creepy kid actor for your creepy-kid horror movie. The one thing Godsend's producers did right was cast Cameron Bright as Adam Duncan, the maybe-evil son of teacher Paul (Greg Kinnear) and photographer Jessie (Rebecca Romijn-Stamos). Bright conveys more menace with one smile than the entire rest of the movie does with all its special effects and cheap scare tactics.
Adam starts off as the happy couple's cherubic son, but his cute, little life is cut short when he's run down by a car the day after his eighth birthday. Adam's distraught parents are confronted right outside their son's funeral by Dr. Richard Wells (Robert De Niro, chewing scenery and collecting a check). Wells offers Paul and Jessie the chance to bring Adam back to life, or rather a clone of Adam, identical to their son in every way.
Except, you know, evil. New Adam apparently has been given the horror-movie gene, so shortly after his eighth birthday he starts acting like Damien from The Omen, threatening other kids at school, having portentous nightmares, and making vague proclamations about something bad happening.
The entire movie is pretty much one long, vague proclamation about something bad happening. Mad scientist Wells denies messing with Adam's genetic soup, and Paul digs up some awfully convenient revelations that stretch credibility a bit much, even for a creepy-kid horror movie. The filmmakers shot five different endings and cut scenes to get the rating down to a PG-13, and it shows. Nothing in the film, aside from Bright's performance, is remotely scary, the twists are telegraphed and predictable, and the ending smacks of compromise.
Kinnear and Romijn-Stamos do their best as the concerned parents, but writer Mark Bomback gives the actors such clumsy dialogue that not even De Niro can sell it. As a horror movie, Godsend is afraid of being horrific and backs away from true terror, or anything more than the hint of real violence, at every opportunity. The issue of cloning, which could be the basis for a fascinating ethical exploration, is treated as nothing more than a gimmick, and a thin one at that. Godsend isn't worth a second look, but keep an eye on that Bright kid; he might just kill you in your sleep.