Replicas

Replicas

Starring Keanu Reeves, Alice Eve, Thomas Middleditch, John Ortiz

Directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff

The Story:
William Foster (Keanu Reeves) is a research neuroscientist who's trying to implant a dead person's consciousness into a robot, but so far has failed to do so, while his boss Jones (John Ortiz) demands results.  While on a weekend getaway with his wife Mona (Alice Eve) and their children Sophie (Emily Alyn Lind), Matt (Emjay Anthony), and Zoe (Aria Leabu), they get involved in a car accident that kills them all except William.  Instead of calling the police, he calls fellow researcher Ed (Thomas Middleditch), and plans to recreate his family's consciousness into human replicas by breeding them in his home until they're fully matured and ready for the consciousness transplant.  Not only do they have to do this in secrecy, but there's only three pods in which they can be re-created, meaning William will have to let one of his loved ones go for good.

The Synopsis:
"Okay.  Alright.  That happened."

Those three basic sentences could easily describe whatever "Replicas" was, but in a humorous twist those are also lines uttered by our reluctant hero (or antihero?  I don't know) in the film.  Yes, after finding out his entire family has been wiped out, and he undergoes a completely untested method to possibly bring 75% of them back, Keanu Reeves' character utters those words after cops visit his house in search of missing batteries from neighbors' cars (he had taken them all to maintain electrical power in his house).  Just that alone should set the tone for a totally offbeat, humorous, and a "so-bad-it's-good" adventure, but the film still manages to take itself so seriously that it doesn't even fall into that category - it's just bad.

Unlike another Keanu Reeves adventure into the science-fiction genre - and to that end I'm talking about the unintentionally hilarious "Johnny Mnemonic" - "Replicas" fails to deliver the science, or the fiction, or any other reason to allow it to be granted a wide release in major theaters instead of just a direct-to-digital release you'd expect pieces of crap like this would do.  The concept itself is so outlandish and nonsensical it doesn't even deserve a half-hour special let alone a full almost-two-hour blowfest, but it somehow magically happened.  After loosing his family, a man decides to clone them and use their consciousness to re-create his family all the while somehow thinking he can maintain secrecy through it all.  That's it, or at least that's what it should've been.

Instead, that's just the tip of the iceberg in this totally plothole driven farce, where scene after scene occurs and you wonder how they hold together, let alone attempt to make any sort of sense.  Taking the likes of "Frankenstein," "Ex Machina" and "Minority Report" and making them into a worse-than-SyFy Original-outing, "Replicas" is easily the strongest contender for the worst film of 2019...and it's only 15 days into the new year.

There's an interesting plot point in the film, where to obtain a person's consciousness...or neuro pathways or something...you have to stick a needle through the person's eye.  I figure the pain of that is only slightly worse than keeping your eyes open for this film.

Maybe if we had Nicolas Cage, it would've been watchable, but Keanu Reeves maintains a stoic performance throughout (even when he looses his family, and he seemingly tries to cry but it looks totally forced) and doesn't allow the audience in on the special joke that must've been going around while making this film, because by no means is it supposed to be serious...right?

At least it seemed like it was nearing its zenith, but then the classic "third act twist because the writers realized too late they wrote themselves into a corner and couldn't get out" event happens, throwing the film into another thirty or so minutes of nonsensical adventure that just elongates your own pain as you're preparing at any moment to gratefully rise from your seat and run out of the theater to hit your head on something hard so you won't remember this film any longer.  Maybe it's appropriate that the director's last name is "Nachmanoff," because man...was he off his rocker when he made this film.

The Summary:
Serving as an odd homage to its own title, "Replicas" is something that you will never see again - as no film would ever replicate such a boneheaded, nonsensical, plothole ridden film.

The Score: D-