Replicas Reviews

Replicas is a science fiction cloning film, and unintentional comedy gem. When a man suffers a car accident and watches his family die, he hides their deaths, so he can use his garage lab, and skills at cloning robot people to clone his entire family, because he loves them. What starts as a sloppy jaunt into well-charted waters ends up a glorious, unpredictable mess. Keanu Reeves (The Matrix, John Wick,) is at his best here, playing William Foster, a Frankenstein style scientist who is working on creating human life in a lab. He can also set up a pretty sweet lab in his garage, capable of anything his fancy workplace can do, and more. When he’s not making hard choices about which of his family members should be resurrected, he’s also a part time superhero vigilante capable of some amazing action sequences. William skirts the border between maniacal villain, and dark hero. Given Replicas’ sci-fi genre, it could go either way, and in many instances it does, rather than choosing sides. Thomas Middleditch (The Final Girls, The Wolf of Wall Street,) plays Ed, William’s high-ranking coworker at the lab, and friend who also assists him with his home experiments when Ed decides to heist some high-tech equipment. He provides intentionally comic relief through their witty banter, and a foil for the audience to learn more about how the experimentation process works. John Ortiz (Silver Linings Playbook, American Gangster,) plays Jones, William’s antagonistic boss. He sees the possibility to monetize what Ed, and Thomas have managed to create for themselves in the garage lab. Drama ensues when he views the reincarnated family as property, and not people. Alice Eve (She’s Out of My League, Star Trek: Into Darkness,) plays Mona, William’s wife who dies in the car accident. She has a moment of self-realization that something is very wrong, and forces William to reveal the uncomfortable truth to her. She is presented with the grim reality that she is human in essence, but also a machine, along with her kids. Director Jeffrey Nachmanoff (Traitor, Homeland,) makes all the right choices here, in that he’s in on the joke with Keanu Reeves, who also produced. Seeing that this film would not work as a serious, straightforward sci-fi thriller, the lines are delivered over the top, the cuts quick, and the movie a brief though thorough homage to bad sci-fi movies of the 90’s like Johnny Mnemonic, also starring Keanu Reeves. Writer Chad St. John (London Has Fallen, Peppermint,) was faced with some tough choices himself: with advanced science this close to happening in real life, and way too complicated for people without an advanced degree to understand, how could he present it in a palatable way? Instead of limiting how much action, or science was needed, he just threw all the genre concepts into a mixing bag and shook it up with a healthy dose of chase sequences, philosophy, and took out any meaningful questions about life that might distract from the spectacle. Funny, quirky, and quick, Replicas is an enjoyable mixed bag: there’s no room for dead space in the frenetic pacing, the bad dialogue is delivered laughably poorly in many scenes, the uneducated terminology takes the science out of the fiction, and the CGI graphics belong to a previous era.