Self/Less(2015)**

Self/Less, or more appropriately, Wit/Less is an identity switching sci-fi drama starring Ben Kingsley as an ailing billionaire property tycoon called Damien Hale. In need of a solution to save his dying body and preserve his brilliant mind, Hale seeks out a futuristic treatment whereby his consciousness is implanted into a younger, fitter body – this being Ryan Reynolds – but is the body just a hollow vessel grown in a lab or does it have memories of its own?

Mistaken identity and conspiracy are well-worn science fiction ideas drawn most notably from Philip K. Dick’s venerable canon of work, but Tarsem Singh’s picture instead seems to be reworking riffs from already rehashed movies such as The Island(2005), The Butterfly Effect(2004) and Unknown(2011) as opposed to something like John Woo’s superior identity thriller Face/Off(1997) or Spielberg's Minority Report(2002). What begins with an enjoyable body-shock premise – which initially sees Hale using his newly acquired health and physical allure to party and attract girls – after the first reel loses any sense of ingenuity in favour of a bland sub-Bourne chase narrative. Ben Kingsley adds presence and gravitas to the surrounding emptiness of the drama and Ryan Reynolds tries hard with the material he is given, but the end result is an unnecessarily long and ludicrous one.