In Self/Less, as explained to Ben Kingsley's Donald Trump-esque real estate mogul, there is a secretive process, called "shedding," created by Professor Albright (Matthew Goode), that can transfer people's consciousness out of their body and into a new one which Albright has been able to make in a lab. Albright offers this procedure to Kingsley's character, Damian, because Albright believes that the world would be a lesser place without Damian, that he is one of the planet's "greatest minds."
On the face of it, the very notion sounds foolish for a multitude of reasons. Chiefly there is the fact that everything we see of Damian makes it appear that he hasn't been the greatest of guys during his life. On a personal level, he is estranged from his daughter, Claire (Michelle Dockery), because of his own actions and on a business level we see him metaphorically cut the legs off another real estate developer because he took offense to the way said developer went about pursuing a contract.
Combined with his gilded lifestyle, it forces one to wonder what exactly Damian might be able to offer the world, save money. Albright can insist all he wants that he isn't solely offering his services to Damian because Damian's rich, but that is either a falsehood within the movie's structure or playing towards Damian's vanity.
Then, one has to wonder exactly how Albright has managed to create perfect bodies in a lab. Even if consciousness is transferrable in this context, the creation of the body is made to feel like the truly extraordinary feat. As Damian isn't the greatest of guys and has cancer, he quickly bypasses this important question and takes Albright up on his offer. Thus, Ben Kingsley becomes Ryan Reynolds. As Albright is something of a poor liar and the change happens early on, no one will be surprised that all is not well after the change.Reynolds' Damian starts seeing things which the audience will instantly recognize as bits of a past life and which Damian works out eventually. From there things truly go downhill, as once Damian and the audience learn where the body came from, the movie stops asking questions and becomes a pretty mundane chase.
The best thing about Self/Less is that it manages to stay exceptionally interesting early on as the entire concept, as pitched by Albright, is fascinating – what if consciousness truly were transferrable? To that point, Self/Less is an absolutely edge-of-your-seat affair: Where is this going to go? What is going to happen next? How does Reynolds' Damian deal with this change?
All too quickly disappointment sets in because the answers are with a lot of chases, some guns, a flamethrower or two, and a pretty silly twist. Singh has a great concept in search of better execution. In fact, much of the film seems to actively avoid trying to have Reynolds' Damian face up to the biggest question – if his body used to belong to someone else, even if that person actively gave up their life for this procedure to take place, does Damian have a responsibility to return it? The question becomes even more pertinent as the man in question has/had a wife and daughter.
Both Reynolds and Kingsley are enjoyable to watch, delivering solid performances, as does Natalie Martinez as Madeline, the aforementioned wife. On the downside, there doesn't seem to be much of an overlap between the two Damians, even if they are the same guy. At one point, Reynolds' Damian realizes through a mannerism he sees in a video that Albright is not in his original body either. It is a clear, distinct, moment that the film hands us so we can see Damian piecing things together, but there isn't any apparent, similar, alignment in mannerisms between the two Damians themselves which is a terrible oversight. They don't even act similarly.
Singh, whose previous directorial efforts (including Mirror Mirror and Immortals) are full of style over substance, tones down some of his usual over the top flourishes for Self/Less. The manner in which we are shown Reynolds' Damian's memories of his past life is great, but the rest of the visuals do not offer anything spectacular and have not been replaced by substance. For someone with great visual command of the medium, Singh's latest is a disappointment.
