Just out on DVD Tarsem Singh’s (Immortals) sci-fi Self/Less could be said to fall into the category of interesting premise, but poorly executed film. Similar to the 1997 film Face/Off, in story and in title, we see the mind of one individual transferred to another body/face.

Ben Kingsley (Damian) plays a wealthy, shrewd business exec who, coughing up blood and trembling with coffee cups, is on his way out in spite of his mental faculties being in tip-top shape. Knowing his days are almost numbered he chances on finding a process called ‘shedding’, in which consciousness can be transferred. His new body, he is told by a bespectacled British transhumanist, will be custom-made by, “the world’s finest craftsmen.”

While there are some theories that this process will one day become possible, the cinematic depiction of the operation is somewhat lacking in plausibility. But at this point it is worth suspending belief a little as, well, it’s Sir Ben Kingsley on the operating table (a giant human Microwave). Kingsley goes in, and out comes the rather fetching body of Ryan Reynolds. It doesn’t take long until he’s shooting hoops and bedding young women, which I guess is what you’d do if you had Ryan Reynolds’ biceps. But a problem arises in the story early on: Ben Kingsley’s character is nowhere to be seen in the new body. The ailing businessman becomes a hunk of a superhero, which is somewhat of a problem as the cross-over and how it might be dealt with should have been the driving force behind the early part of the film.

Guns, bitches and Macbooks

After suffering hallucinations because he didn’t take the meds he’d been told to take, Damian realizes he was likely given a dead man’s body – he’d been told beforehand that the body was designed, not bequeathed. This leads to one of the best scenes in the movie when Damian, in his new body, meets the wife of the solider whose body he inhabits. The pathos is short-lived, and he quickly finds out after a scuffle with the transhumanist laboratory’s muscle , “You thought you bought a new car, but it turns out it has some miles on it.”

From plausible acting and a script so far worth listening to, the film degenerates into an action-hero romp, and even less do we believe that Damian ever existed as Reynolds basically plays his sexy self. We should not speak ill of the dead, but when the transhumanist scientist attempts to rationalize the morality behind using almost deceased men for the use of richer, dying men, he comes out with an amusing comparison. Think what the great minds of this world could have accomplished if they had had more time, he asks, giving as examples, “Einstein, Edison, Steve Jobs,”… arguably a mismatched threesome. At least there is a fair bit of Apple product placement in Self/Less, which may explain why Jobs is third best.

And from there the film spirals downwards, turning a good idea into silly car-chase caper replete with mawkish, supposedly heartfelt, scenes you probably won’t care much about. The morality of transhumanism, or the difficulty in adapting to another man’s body (and life) is lost behind hails of bullets and people being burned alive. The pay-off for all the violence in Self/Less is naturally a voluptuous bikini-clad pair of mammary glands bouncing towards the hero on a secluded island beach. This wouldn’t have been so bad if the body embracing those young breasts was controlled by the brain of a lusty old man who can’t believe his good fortune. Such an unusual coupling could have helped to improved Self/Less‘ poor ratings.

Photo credit: Self/Less Facebook official