REPLICAS

US, 2018, 107 minutes.
Keanu Reeves, Alice Eve, Thomas Middleditch, John Ortiz.
Directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff


Replicas is a piece of futuristic science-fiction. In Puerto Rico, there is a laboratory where scientists are experimenting on those who have recently died, wanting to preserve their brain life, transferring it to a mechanical framework, a robot. Chief scientist is William, Keanu Reeves, assisted by an earnest Thomas Middleditch. John Ortiz is the sinister boss of the Institute, more interested in finance than in scientific advance.

William succeeds with a brain transplant of an American soldier who then goes berserk. The complication of the film’s plot is that William and his wife, Alice Eve, and three children are in Puerto Rico. They are involved in a car accident, wife and children all dying. But, there are only three robotic cases and William decides to let his youngest daughter, to whom is devoted, remain dead, removing memory traces of her from the others. While the brain transplant is not successful, the scientists realise that they can actually transfer bodies so that the resuscitated wife and children become perfect copies.

As expected, not everything will go well, the boss intervening and wanting the logarithms for himself. However, there is a happy ending for the family, the revival of the youngest daughter and a reunion. And, the boss is shot but also revives to open his own clinic for wealthy clients and their future lives.

1. The title? Science-fiction? A variation on the Dr Frankenstein story? Science, hubris, mistakes?

2. The Puerto Rico setting? The tropics? William and his home, the family? The scientific centre, the elaborate interiors, laboratories, machines, technology? The musical score?

3. William, his reputation, the experiments, with the dead, the robotic body, the algorithms, the visuals of the algorithms, bringing the dead to life, the dead soldier, his violent reaction?

4. Ed, science, loyal to William, participating in the techniques and experiments? The contrast with Jones, the boss, money, the threats to William and his future?

5. William, his wife and children, devotion to his wife, to his little girl, domestic scenes, her drawing on the table (and his later scrubbing it out)? Going for the drive? The accident? Deaths?

6. William and his decision, taking the bodies, covering all the possibilities for where his family was, school…? Wanting Ed to participate in the experiment? Reluctance, caution, persuaded?

7. The experiments, transferring the brain? The breakthrough, the family alive in their bodies? Bringing the bodies to life? The success?

8. The family reviving more quickly than expected, going home, domestic life, the wife jogging, the meals? Possible difficulties, during the jogging, the lack of coordination of the boy with his meals? The wife realising there was something wrong? William explaining? The fact that there were only three possibilities and having to let the young girl die and arrays her memories?

9. Jones, coming to the house, the threats, wanting the algorithm, William burning it, the thugs? The escape? Going to the clinic, eliminating the surveillance machines from the bodies?

10. The final confrontation? The offer to Jones to die and be brought to life again with the algorithm? To set himself up in business and new life?

11. The family escaping, Jones shooting and the possibility for his revival?

12. The blend of sentimental happy ending with the family, with the cynical ending of Jones and his own plant, ushering in the client for revival?