Self-Less
Director: Tarsem Singh
Actors: Matthew Goode, Natalie Martinez
Release Date: Friday 17th July 2015
Genre(s): Sci-Fi, Thriller
Running time: 117 minutes
Ryan Reynolds is better than this. Like he's been better than the vast majority of his starring roles ever since breaking Hollywood. You've seen this type of high concept science fiction before executed better, but Tarsem Singh's film has a couple of moments that engage - despite lacking the visual flair that made him a (all be it briefly) name director in Hollywood.
Ben Kingsley is a dying real estate mogul who fancies himself a muscular young body instead of buying the farm, so transfers his consciousness to that of Ryan Reynolds. Which, to be fair, if most men could dying or not, y'would.Naturally enough all is not what it seems as the origin of the body and a few other complications throw a spanner in the works of his new six pack and movie star good looks.
This is firmly a Reynolds joint, and is purely being sold on Reynolds. That can be the only reason the talented actor has once again chosen a subpar script with some promising, but under developed ideas. After a series of box office failures, Reynolds is back into public favour with the Deadpool buzz that has been building since before a camera rolled. A role he was born to play, it should take him back to the Jake Gyllenhaal level of scripts that are probably passing him by.
He was great in The Voices, but it was way too quirky to find a sizeable audience. Self/Less had a far wider release and didn't find an audience because there's nothing new here other than a 'hey, what if...' angle to a familiar but fun sci-fi concept they never run with.
Passable, banal fare. Hopefully that's the last time we say that about a Ryan Reynolds flick.
