What if all those nearest and dearest to you happened to suddenly die but you had a way to bring them back?
By which I mean copying the essential part of themness - what makes them them exactly - into freshly cloned biological bodies.
Sounds intellectual? This is where this new psychological thriller starring Keanu Reeves and Alice Eve starts but don't worry about it getting all too intellectual and thus boring.
I have just managed to summarize it in more interesting way than it actually is. Truth is, "Replicas" gets to turn boring in good old-fashioned way - via hammy storytelling and acting.
In fact, "turn" is an entirely wrong word here. "Replicas" doesn't turn boring. It is quite limp and unexciting from the start, then at several points hints at possibility of evolving into something... but then just coils into fetal position on the floor and starts sucking its thumb.
Reeves's character - the modern Frankenstein - takes the central place, and his performance is appropriately lifeless and uninspired, just as the story.
Which doesn't come as a surprise, for he's always had a limited range as an actor, thus fitting better into action than anything dramatic (such as this role where he has to mourn the death of closed ones).
Then again, it's hard to tell what exactly gets Reeves going in front of the cameras. There are other comparably badly written movies where he seems perfectly adequate, such as 2016's "The Whole Truth" to offer a recent example.
But "Replicas" is not one of those successful projects. The material doesn't ignite, and neither does the leading man.
Alice Eve, on the other hand, gives a convincing and relatable performance as a good wife wrestling with doubts and difficulties to forgive her husband for certain terrible deeds.
But she doesn't have much screen time, so she's does not get nowhere near a chance of rescuing the movie.
The problem is that despite the movie's eagerness to imitate other, better sci-fi stories, most of what happens goes by without any adequate explanation or logical progression.
One minute the hero does not know how to move the human consciousness between bodies without horrible results, very soon he already succeeds at first try, and several times in a row. One minute we learn that the security chips can't be taken out of clones bodies, the next they do just that without any problem, etc.
In a story like that, there is also always an intriguing question of whether the clones would turn bad or fail in some major way.
The wait for something along these lines gives the movie some suspense but... let's just say that the authors have not searched for or found meaningful ways to explore that topic.
The coolest thing about "Replicas" may be the fact that us Estonians get to see it in cinemas full two months before the US. Doesn't sound that cool? Sorry, that's all I've got...
Oh well. Let's hope it's not gonna be successful, so the producers are not tempted to clone this into a franchise or something.
By which I mean copying the essential part of themness - what makes them them exactly - into freshly cloned biological bodies.
Sounds intellectual? This is where this new psychological thriller starring Keanu Reeves and Alice Eve starts but don't worry about it getting all too intellectual and thus boring.
I have just managed to summarize it in more interesting way than it actually is. Truth is, "Replicas" gets to turn boring in good old-fashioned way - via hammy storytelling and acting.
In fact, "turn" is an entirely wrong word here. "Replicas" doesn't turn boring. It is quite limp and unexciting from the start, then at several points hints at possibility of evolving into something... but then just coils into fetal position on the floor and starts sucking its thumb.
Reeves's character - the modern Frankenstein - takes the central place, and his performance is appropriately lifeless and uninspired, just as the story.
Which doesn't come as a surprise, for he's always had a limited range as an actor, thus fitting better into action than anything dramatic (such as this role where he has to mourn the death of closed ones).
Then again, it's hard to tell what exactly gets Reeves going in front of the cameras. There are other comparably badly written movies where he seems perfectly adequate, such as 2016's "The Whole Truth" to offer a recent example.
But "Replicas" is not one of those successful projects. The material doesn't ignite, and neither does the leading man.
Alice Eve, on the other hand, gives a convincing and relatable performance as a good wife wrestling with doubts and difficulties to forgive her husband for certain terrible deeds.
But she doesn't have much screen time, so she's does not get nowhere near a chance of rescuing the movie.
The problem is that despite the movie's eagerness to imitate other, better sci-fi stories, most of what happens goes by without any adequate explanation or logical progression.
One minute the hero does not know how to move the human consciousness between bodies without horrible results, very soon he already succeeds at first try, and several times in a row. One minute we learn that the security chips can't be taken out of clones bodies, the next they do just that without any problem, etc.
In a story like that, there is also always an intriguing question of whether the clones would turn bad or fail in some major way.
The wait for something along these lines gives the movie some suspense but... let's just say that the authors have not searched for or found meaningful ways to explore that topic.
The coolest thing about "Replicas" may be the fact that us Estonians get to see it in cinemas full two months before the US. Doesn't sound that cool? Sorry, that's all I've got...
Oh well. Let's hope it's not gonna be successful, so the producers are not tempted to clone this into a franchise or something.