When once isn’t enough.
[easyazon_link identifier=”B01169SSOI” locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]Self/Less[/easyazon_link] tells the tale of a rich man who is dying. Someone slips him a business card with a note that says they can help you. He decides to take a chance and call them. He finds out that for a mere 250 million, he can get a new body. For a rich real estate developer, he doesn’t seem to be bothered that this high tech lab that’s going to give me a brain transplant looks a lot like BioSphere 2. But hey, they have those plastic strip curtain things on all the doors, so I guess it’s ok.
In pretty short order he dies and they take him back to the warehouse. They put him in a machine with his new body and turn on a couple of large spinning things and some flashing lights. Thirty seconds later he opens the eyes of his new body. And here we have one of the first bits that doesn’t make any sense. Instead of an actual brain or head transplant, we have a mind transplant.
Ok, fine. But. Ben Kingsley does a bit of scenery chewing as a New York Mafiosa type who talks with a thick accent and gives head nods as he makes offers you can’t refuse. But as soon as pretty boy Ryan Reynolds takes over, no accent, no gestures, no hint that he is playing anyone other than Ryan Reynolds.
The rest of the film sees Ryan fighting the evil guys at the mind swapping shop. He finds out that his new body is not exactly new. And while Ben wouldn’t have gave a damn about this guy and his family, Ryan gets soft and mushy about them.
Another problem. We are given hints that the bad guys are running some kind of Bond Villain type of operation. They have operatives who show up out of nowhere. They are everywhere and they are many. They have a lot of money, we can assume that Ben is not the only rich old bastard to buy a new body, but still. But then, well, it looks like there are only a couple of dozen people involved. And some them are just Techs.
[easyazon_link identifier=”B01169X9Z6″ locale=”US” tag=”londonthoug-20″]Self/Less[/easyazon_link] might have had a chance if there was any similarity at all between the two actors supposedly playing the same character. But then, the story really wasn’t worth that much effort. The fact that I watched it in a Dollar Threater a month after it came out says a lot about the film’s quality.
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