“Cell” (** out of four) was a watchable, if not exhilarating, adaptation of Stephen King’s novel about a mysterious virus that erupts through people’s cell phones and results in the walking dead worldwide and an artist (John Cusack) and a few survivors (Samuel L. Jackson and Isabelle Fuhrman) who struggle to stay alive on the New England coast and make sense of what is going on. Potentially frightening story has the possibility for being a satiric commentary on society’s dependency on technology but settles instead for being a standard zombie thriller in the mold of a George Romero movie or “The Walking Dead”. Never really gets going but strong performances from Cusack and Jackson and Michael Simmonds’ moody noir-like cinematography keep you watching.