2.5 stars (out of 5)
A flashily irritating blockbuster effort (see also director Tarsem Singh’s Mirror Mirror and Immortals), this goes the extra irksome mile by revealing itself right from the word go as a possibly lawsuit-inducing rip-off of director John Frankenheimer’s 1966 cult masterpiece Seconds. There are notable differences, however: in Seconds our protagonist was miserably middle-aged, but here he’s terminally ill; Frankenheimer’s classic doesn’t have all the whiz-bang sci-fi trimmings, nor does it turn into a dumb action movie halfway through; and Seconds was colder, harder, more mature and far less damn smug.
A dying real estate billionaire named Damian (Ben Kingsley, not in it enough) is waiting to expire from cancer when he hears of ‘shedding’ (which even sounds like ‘Seconds’), and pays huge money to Dr Albright (Matthew Goode) to undergo the mysterious, conscience-transferring procedure. Waking up in a body that looks surprisingly like Ryan Reynolds’, Damian is soon relocated to an expensive New Orleans man-cave where he enjoys being young (and looking like Ryan Reynolds) until wacky hallucinations and seizures lead him to ask too many questions and eventually rebel against Albright’s awfully unethical company.
Forced to team up with Madeline (Natalie Martinez) and her little daughter Anna (Jaynee-Lynne Kinchen) for reasons that you’ll surely have guessed about half an hour beforehand, we’re soon into Ryan-Reynolds-thriller territory, with any suggestion of serious science fiction plotting (you know – like in Seconds) taking a backseat to car chases and further dopey twists.
Lacking the lame humour of Mirror Mirror and the ultra-violence of Immortals, this opts instead for glossy, pretentious dullness, with a shameless script (by sibling screenwriters David and Alex Pastor) that’s very much a Hollywood factory second.
I Wake Up Screening 