Self/less chooses action over intellectual sci-fi themes

Do you know what I wouldn’t recommend? Do you know what isn’t wonderful, well-crafted or any of the things I praised Ex Machina for? A little production called Self/less, directed by Tarsem Singh. A much bigger production than Ex Machina, this movie launched during the summer blockbuster season, sporting big-name performers like Ryan Reynolds and Ben Kingsley.

Before its release, audiences knew nothing other than its title and that it had something to do with people implanting their consciousnesses into other people’s bodies. With pulse-pounding action, an excellent cast and a morbidly intriguing premise, this was bound to be a movie to look forward to, right? Wrong.

The film opens on one Damian Hale, played initially by Ben Kingsley. When Damian, a wealthy man, is confronted with terminal cancer, he is approached by a man named Albright who promises him a way to continue living when he would otherwise die. Damian agrees to have his consciousness transferred into a new body that has apparently been grown for him through a process called “shedding.” He is thus granted renewed youth and health.

All seems to go according to plan until Damian finds himself assailed with hallucinations of a life apparently not his own. He soon learns that his new body may not have been as fresh as Albright claimed and that the entire “shedding” operation may not quite have been all that it appeared to be.

I tend to get excited whenever concepts like the conscious mind are brought to the forefront in sci-fi stories. By their very nature, concepts like these raise questions that cause people to question who and what they really are, what constitutes being alive and what about us actually makes us who we are. (Not to mention all the monsters, real and metaphorical, that may be lurking in one’s own head.) These are all such fun concepts and are always so fascinating to see in action when executed properly.

What causes me to raise my eyebrows is why the film chooses to play around with none of them.

Make no mistake: Interesting concept aside, Self/less is an action movie and a particularly bland one at that. In a movie based around conflicting personalities and mental issues, the characters all manage to have the personalities of wet construction paper. Ryan Reynolds, to his credit, tries his hardest to encapsulate the struggle of two minds vying for control over one body, but unfortunately the script just does not give him enough wiggle room to truly make his character come across as at all compelling. You know there will be a moral choice at the end, and you know precisely what it will be from the get-go. No struggle, no inner conflict, no thinking, no fun.

But simply being an action movie rather than an intellectual sci-fi thriller isn’t in and of itself a bad thing so I may have gone in with skewed expectations. That’s at least partially my fault, right? Unfortunately the reality isn’t so simple. With spaced-out and arguably subdued action sequences, this film desperately wanted to be a “make you think, make you feel” kind of movie. Long periods of investigation, contemplation and revelation bring the film’s pace to a remarkably slow level on multiple occasions throughout. In fact the actual conflict/chase sequences often feel like vessels simply to get us to the next plot revelation. The end result is a film trying and failing to be intellectual and compelling with secondary action that just isn’t strong enough to pick up the slack.

I’ll give Self/less this: It certainly tries. Although it fails in nearly every respect, from its storytelling to its construction to its set pieces, it is evident that Singh and the writers had a vision of what could have been a very heartfelt, compelling and stimulating film. Though the contemplative bits fall just below the mark, it is clear that on a conceptual level, each of them has more than enough to stand on. Unfortunately what we’re left with is something generic, forgettable and, unfortunately, pretty stupid.

Overall rating: 3/10