Movie Review: Replicas

credit: Replicas

There are certain things that scientists shouldn’t do, and most of them know this, but of course, a few of them might decide to forget about the morality of their decisions if there’s a good enough reason to do so. In the case of William Foster, that reason comes when his wife and three children are killed as a result of a car accident, leaving him as the sole survivor.

William’s work, attempting to transfer a living consciousness into an android body, is seen as a failure initially, but when he makes the snap decision to resurrect his family by using the same technology that he’s been developing to use on an android, things take a few turns that might have been expected but weren’t easy to fully anticipate.

The fact is that this a mad scientist story in part, but the resulting creation isn’t an insanely strong monster that blames its existence on the person who created it, but rather a grieving father and husband that wanted his family back. The issue with this is that instead of thinking about the consequences, William bulls ahead without taking the time to grieve, and as he does, one lie becomes another, and then another, and so on. 

credit: Replicas

Mapping the human brain looks a little too simple in the movies. 

What’s known of the human brain tends to vary depending on who a person talks to, but for the purpose of fictional stories, it does happen quite often that scientists have found a way to record things, erase things, or tamper with the human mind in a way that’s kind of terrifying considering the implications of what is usually being done in any given movie.

But in Replicas, it’s important to note that while William is doing something that’s highly suspect, he’s not an evil person, and he’s not someone that’s out to prove what he can do, at least not in a negative sense. It’s kind of tough to justify his work, especially since he acts like a modern-day Frankenstein when it comes to resurrecting his family. Unlike the arrogant scientist from the legendary story, though, William is a man that’s refusing to grieve and instead seeks to make it appear that nothing happened at all. In other words, his actions are worse than denial since he refuses to grieve and dips directly into insanity. 

The acting in this movie feels a bit wooden, as the dialogue feels a little rough. 

Strangely enough, this movie was released in 2018, long after Keanu Reeves had regained his prominence in Hollywood and well into a time when his career was already at a high point. Why this movie was made isn’t that deep of a question, but why the dialogue sounds so choppy and unnatural is hard to figure out unless the director was going for something that felt artificial and not entirely cohesive.

There’s a lot that can be said about dialogue since it can make or break a movie in a number of ways, but for some reason, actors who had already been seen to be phenomenal in several other movies felt as though they were puppets being held by strings as they moved through this movie. There could be a few reasons why this was the case, but overall this wasn’t Keanu’s best movie since he’s been in quite a few motion pictures that showed his acting talents, and this felt as though he was in a state of perpetual suspense from one moment to the next, even when his character’s family died. 

credit: Replicas

The overall idea of the movie was interesting. 

This was an interesting idea, that much is easy to admit. A good science fiction thriller can keep people watching for a while simply because it’s the type of movie that might have a few interesting moments that people want to see expanded in a few ways. The movie does trip itself a little now and then, but never in a way that’s so noticeable that one might think about turning it off unless they’re a diehard cynic. Paying attention to the story and not much else is enough to enjoy this feature from start to finish, but for those that like to take note of everything that goes on in a movie, it might be a bit tough to find enjoyment in every part of it. 

Giving this movie a happy ending without more of a twist sounds sketchy. 

People enjoy happy endings, that hasn’t changed throughout the history of humanity, but this one feels a bit sketch simply because William did something that basically goes against the laws of nature and managed to get away with it, without repercussions. Not only that, but he was able to bring his android to full consciousness and further perversion as the android helped others to lead a second life if they had the money to pay for it. Oh well.