Keanu Reeves had played the main lead in one of cinema's game-changing science fiction thrillers, The Matrix. That film revolutionised the way movies were being made, while making bullet-time so popular among the fans. Now, in this week's Hollywood release, Replicas, Keanu Reeves tries to play his hand once again in the genre of sci-fi, with the pretty Alice Eve and Silicon Valley fame Thomas Middleditch for company. Replicas is directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff and is written by Chad St John based on a story by Stephen Hamel. Keanu Reeves’ Uplifting Tragic Life Story & His Charities Towards Humanitarian Causes Set Him Apart Than Most Actors.

Will Foster (Keanu Reeves) is a neuroscientist who experiments in transferring human consciousness into a robotic body. When we first see him at his ominous workplace, Will is getting a dead man's mind transferred to an android. His experiment nearly succeeds, but when the AI understands the reality of his situation, he violently reacts, resulting in Will shutting him down. Disillusioned with the failure, Will goes on a boating trip with his family, comprising of his wife Mona (Alice Eve) and their three kids for the weekend. On the way, their car meets with an accident and save for Will, everyone gets killed.

Instead of calling up the cops or the hospital, which is what every sane person would do, Will, instead, calls up his friend and fellow scientist Ed (Thomas Middleditch) to cover up the bodies and make clones out of them. Ed is reluctant to work out Will's bizarre idea, but all it takes a nudge for him to get onboard and they begin the cloning process. 17 days later Will restores most of his family members, while also working out the algorithm to run his experiment successfully. His problems, however, are not exactly over, when his resurrected family finds out what he has been up to.

Watching Replicas reminded me of Jurassic Park. Ok, don't make that face! There is absolutely no comparison with Steven Spielberg's masterpiece and this mess of a movie (there, I made my verdict). However, both the films play with similar themes of Man trying to play God by messing with the fabric of nature. John Hammond in Jurassic Park recreated extinct species just because he can. And in Replicas, Will Foster brings back the dead without even giving any thought of whether the deceased even wants to come back. Just because he can. Is Keanu Reeves Wearing 25 Years-old Worn-out Shoes? See How Fans Reacted to The Picture.

At the end of Jurassic Park, Hammond learnt it the hard way about the dangerous consequences of his actions (even though the franchise continues to milk upon his error). In Replicas, the hero, if we can call him that, never faces the repercussions of his actions.

Look, there is nothing wrong with a film not taking a moralistic stand about its protagonists. However, Replicas does get us into the discussions of how justifiable Will Foster's actions were, as it plays with his Frankenstein moment. Still, the movie lets him get away without facing the repercussions of messing with nature, unless you count his face-off with his own evil corporation as a worthy punishment.

Replicas had a really crazy, workable premise, but it couldn't live upto working it out. I can only blame the lazy writing and the shoddy execution of how the themes have been so atrociously handled. When the human clones learn the truth about their existence, they behave as if they just had a domestic squabble over some spilt milk and get back to their daily lives. Cut back to the opening scene in the film, where a reanimated robot is shocked by his new existence and his violent rebellion is hard to watch. So why are those nuances lost when Foster commits the same with his family? Haven't we seen films like Blade Runner and Ex Machina deal with such dilemmas in a delicate way?

Still, there is a sense of intrigue in knowing what the protagonist us upto. Perhaps, in an attempt to troll our belief in the film, the makers bring in that evil organisation trope and turn the film into a soulless thriller. Even technically, Replicas is no great honks, with no respite in its ordinary visual treatment and haphazard editing.

Watch The Trailer of Replicas Here -

The Performances

Keanu Reeves is an actor with enough charisma and limited range. There are times when he can surprise with you with an incredible performance. Unfortunately, Replicas is not that occasion. Keanu is terribly one-note here, never making us empathise with his skewered character motivations. Alice Eve is equally listless, though it has more to do with writing than anything else. Thomas Middleditch brings some spark in a hackneyed role. John Ortiz, who is getting typecast as a sneaky corporate honcho, hams big time.

Yay!

- The Promising Premise

- Some Intriguing Moments

Nay!

- The Writing and The Execution

- The Performances

Final Thoughts

Replicas squanders a very promising premise to bring forth a lethargic thriller, swayed by some one-note performances. The only thing that Replicas does well is make our wait for John Wick 3 even more unbearable, just to see Keanu Reeves in something good.

Rating:2out of 5

(The above story first appeared on LatestLY on Jan 16, 2019 11:00 AM IST. For more news and updates on politics, world, sports, entertainment and lifestyle, log on to our website latestly.com).