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When a movie starts with a dumb idea and it's badly executed, you can't be that disappointed. It's not a big waste. But when a great concept gets bungled, it feels like a loss. Like Cookie Crisp—how could you make cookies and breakfast taste bad? Why? It was such a great idea!
That's what happened with SELF/LESS, the annoyingly capitalized/punctuated science-fiction thriller that's a loose remake of 1966's Seconds, which you haven't heard of but has a really solid concept. SELF/LESS should be a good movie. Instead it's just like eating soggy cardboard made to look like cookies.
Right there SELF///LESS has a lot going for it. Body swapping, Ben Kingsley, rich people stealing poor people's bodies—that's cookies for breakfast. But it's super not-good.
Part of that's the acting. Ryan Reynolds may be an aesthetically perfect meatsuit to put Ben Kingsley's consciousness in, but, sadly, acting seems to be nontransferable. If it were possible to act with chest muscles, he'd be all over it, but subtle faces are not his thing.
Here's the thing when you're casting a movie like this: The actor in the receiving body has to be at least twice as good as the one going in. That's simple math. The body has to be able to act like Ryan Reynolds and like Ben Kingsley inside Ryan Reynolds. If you can't find a doubly good actor who also looks genetically perfect, you can keep Reynolds and go cast a kid you found at a middle school doing Our Town. And not even the lead.
Then there's the action. Did you know that just because somebody in a movie shoots a gun, that doesn't make the movie exciting? And did you know that adding a car chase to a boring gunfight still isn't enough? Especially when the action doesn't even make sense in the context of the thriller you've set up. The main conflict of
/SELF:(LESS/ is a guy feeling bad for stealing a life. It's hard to really get us into that plot if he kills 50 people along the way.
And there's the little things. I'm of the belief that in science fiction—because you're taking such leaps with science and technology—all the tiny details need to be extra-believable. I'll go with you on the concept of transferring consciousness, but if you discover two people are secretly the same person because they both do the same weird thing where they flick the side of their eyeglasses in a way that I'm confident no human ever actually does, my disbelief gets unsuspended.
Another example: The machines that perform the consciousness-transfer operation in ///////////// are just CT scanners. The doctor repeatedly mentions magnets but explains nothing else about the process as if we're back watching Terminator GEN/ISYS. Unless the question is, how will we stick stuff to the inside of our lockers? The answer shouldn't just be magnets.
And one more: My new favorite thing in movies is badly photoshopped pictures staged in a person's house to show the backstory. Obviously, Ryan Reynolds isn't just pretending to be this character because, look—here are three photos with his head pasted on them! He's lived a full life!
There's probably a metaphor in here about body-swapping, but like Ryan Reynolds I'm just not willing to put in the effort to make this great.
SEE IT: SELF/LESS is rated R. It opens Friday at Cedar Hills, Eastport, Clackamas, Bridgeport, City Center, Division, Evergreen, Lloyd Center, Movies on TV. Grade C-
WWeek 2015