Self/Less
Posted: Mon Jul 18, 2016 9:44 am
In case you're wondering why all the reviews this weekend, it's because it was free HBO/Cinemax weekend and due to work I stayed home while my family went to the lake.
Ben Kingsly is a very rich and powerful man that's about to die. He pays for an experimental procedure that promises to give him a brand new lab grown body in the form of Ryan Reynolds. The procedure works and he begins his life over with a nice bank roll and new identity. That's when he discovers that the lab grown body he inhabits wasn't grown in a lab.
Very meh.
This is another movie with great potential that fails. Everyone tries hard to make it work, but there are some missteps. The story just wasn't tight.
I was entertained just enough not to call this a complete waste of my time, but I can't recommend it.
Now if you plan to see the film, please don't read the rest of this because there's something I have to share...Spoilers below...
I don't know who they talked to about flamethrowers, but either he was an idiot, didn't give a fuck, or spent a lot of time saying, "That's not how it works." We're first introduced to the flamethrower when a cleanup team arrives to rid the Earth of Ryan's family. Why this loose end wasn't cleaned up before the switch is a mystery. This evil organization has no problem killing folks, but is too dumb to be proactive about it? Anyway, the flamethrower is being used on a pickup truck from about 10 feet away. Nobody is in it, this is part of them "cleaning up". What the fuck? We see this guy roasting the truck for the entire 10-15 minute scene. It's hilarious. Then he turns and shoots the house. It's less effective on the house than on the truck! Wood > Metal against fire in Hollywood. Later, they're in a top secret lab inside of a small warehouse. It's environmentally controlled and protected from contamination, but when Ryan Reynolds grabs a metal dolly for cover to go into a room what just happens to be sitting on the dolly? The fully loaded flamethrower. Why in the fuck would it be there? Thank goodness it is though because when the big bad villain is standing on the other side of a two way mirror instead of just shooting him with the gun in his hands, Ryan picks up that flamethrower and melts through the two way mirror to roast the guy. Fucking hilarious. I'm pretty sure the user manual on a flamethrower says don't use this in tight, confined spaces. Every bit of the flamethrower made me think of the story Kevin Smith tells about John Peters and his desire to see Superman fight a giant spider, which eventually became the spider vehicle in Wild Wild West.
Ben Kingsly is a very rich and powerful man that's about to die. He pays for an experimental procedure that promises to give him a brand new lab grown body in the form of Ryan Reynolds. The procedure works and he begins his life over with a nice bank roll and new identity. That's when he discovers that the lab grown body he inhabits wasn't grown in a lab.
Very meh.
This is another movie with great potential that fails. Everyone tries hard to make it work, but there are some missteps. The story just wasn't tight.
I was entertained just enough not to call this a complete waste of my time, but I can't recommend it.
Now if you plan to see the film, please don't read the rest of this because there's something I have to share...Spoilers below...
I don't know who they talked to about flamethrowers, but either he was an idiot, didn't give a fuck, or spent a lot of time saying, "That's not how it works." We're first introduced to the flamethrower when a cleanup team arrives to rid the Earth of Ryan's family. Why this loose end wasn't cleaned up before the switch is a mystery. This evil organization has no problem killing folks, but is too dumb to be proactive about it? Anyway, the flamethrower is being used on a pickup truck from about 10 feet away. Nobody is in it, this is part of them "cleaning up". What the fuck? We see this guy roasting the truck for the entire 10-15 minute scene. It's hilarious. Then he turns and shoots the house. It's less effective on the house than on the truck! Wood > Metal against fire in Hollywood. Later, they're in a top secret lab inside of a small warehouse. It's environmentally controlled and protected from contamination, but when Ryan Reynolds grabs a metal dolly for cover to go into a room what just happens to be sitting on the dolly? The fully loaded flamethrower. Why in the fuck would it be there? Thank goodness it is though because when the big bad villain is standing on the other side of a two way mirror instead of just shooting him with the gun in his hands, Ryan picks up that flamethrower and melts through the two way mirror to roast the guy. Fucking hilarious. I'm pretty sure the user manual on a flamethrower says don't use this in tight, confined spaces. Every bit of the flamethrower made me think of the story Kevin Smith tells about John Peters and his desire to see Superman fight a giant spider, which eventually became the spider vehicle in Wild Wild West.