Keanu is a bio scientist working on implanting the mind (?) of dead (!) soldiers into synthetic bodies. As the movie begins they are working on specimen #345. The mind implant works but when the body is booted the creature rips itself apart. That day his boss informs him that unless they make it work, the project is over. That night Keanu takes his family on a road trip. They suffer a bizarre accident right out of Final Destination which kills the wife and the 3 kids but doesn't harm Keanu. So he decides to "revive" his family or at least 3 members of it with the help of colleague Ed. Because at turns out, Ed has been working on some speedy cloning. And sure enough 17 days later, the bodies are grown to the size they were when they died and Keanu after some challenges successfully implants the minds into the cloned bodies. This makes him realize the solution for the 345 body. Of course things with the family aren't entirely smooth.
When they bring in another dead soldier, Keanu opts not to implant that mind because there is too much brain damage. Instead he decides to scan his mind. By this point, his boss confronts him about his family, lets him know that the clones are the corporation's property and they can't have some specimens running out in the wild. The family escapes, but is grabbed, and Keanu has to find a way to save his family, himself, and the technology he developed. There are some interesting revelations and a neat ending.
Replicas teams two unremarkable writers with a decent director who hasn't directed a movie since 2008 and Keanu in a role entirely not suited for him. The result as expected is less than stellar. I am fond in general of sci-fi movies because they tend to surprise occasionally. And Replicas, too, has a couple of good ideas and some good lines here and there. But why did they have to be so sloppy with the script? They spent a lot of time on irrelevant story instead of ironing out some rather unnecessary plot holes. At a running time of 1:47 they had plenty of time to do so. For a sci-fi movie this one is pretty light on science and replaces it with goofy visual effects of the typical CSI-Miami/Iron Man gesture-driven augmented reality interface. The movie looks good though, Middleditch's character and performance are entertaining. A shame the scriptwriters didn't put some more effort in their work. And with a different lead, Replicas could have been above average.
When they bring in another dead soldier, Keanu opts not to implant that mind because there is too much brain damage. Instead he decides to scan his mind. By this point, his boss confronts him about his family, lets him know that the clones are the corporation's property and they can't have some specimens running out in the wild. The family escapes, but is grabbed, and Keanu has to find a way to save his family, himself, and the technology he developed. There are some interesting revelations and a neat ending.
Replicas teams two unremarkable writers with a decent director who hasn't directed a movie since 2008 and Keanu in a role entirely not suited for him. The result as expected is less than stellar. I am fond in general of sci-fi movies because they tend to surprise occasionally. And Replicas, too, has a couple of good ideas and some good lines here and there. But why did they have to be so sloppy with the script? They spent a lot of time on irrelevant story instead of ironing out some rather unnecessary plot holes. At a running time of 1:47 they had plenty of time to do so. For a sci-fi movie this one is pretty light on science and replaces it with goofy visual effects of the typical CSI-Miami/Iron Man gesture-driven augmented reality interface. The movie looks good though, Middleditch's character and performance are entertaining. A shame the scriptwriters didn't put some more effort in their work. And with a different lead, Replicas could have been above average.