This movie is the very definition of "They wasted a perfectly good plot." The movie has a great premise, but it really has absolutely no idea of what to do with it.
The first half of the movie has action scenes that could have been great, if they weren't absolutely murdered by modern hyperactive editing. I was streaming this video, and I couldn't tell if a jump was due to stream lag or just crappy editing. It actually became physically difficult to watch, even though you could tell how much care and effort went into the basic staging of the action scenes.
The second half of the film devolves into sheer idiocy. La Resistence shows up, contrivances happen one after another, and it all ends in a silly climax with the "final boss", who could easily have simply shot the hero and ended the whole thing.
The most interesting parts of the movie revolve around Society, a game where people get to buy the right to temporarily hijack other people's bodies and indulge themselves. The people literally selling themselves are (ostensibly) willing participants, but in almost all cases are simply poor people desperate enough to allow themselves to be used temporarily.
They could have explored the sociological ramifications of allowing such behavior. There are obviously prostitution parallels. Would there be rules as what you could do in someone's body? Would there be cyber-police that would arrest you if you, for example, endangered the life of the person you control? They could have explored what kind of people would even want to hijack other people and use them in such manors.
The closest we get to that is some fat shut-in guy who's perfectly willing to watch a guy murder a couple of people. And gets off on it.
Somehow, I get the feeling that this movie was originally pitched as being just about Society. But some asshole decided to use that premise to turn it into an action flick. So instead of a dramatic, compelling work exploring the nature of how the wealthy prey upon the poor, what we have is a typical 00's-style action flick, in the worst possible sense of those words.
A good idea ruined by editing and stupid
This movie is the very definition of "They wasted a perfectly good plot." The movie has a great premise, but it really has absolutely no idea of what to do with it.
The first half of the movie has action scenes that could have been great, if they weren't absolutely murdered by modern hyperactive editing. I was streaming this video, and I couldn't tell if a jump was due to stream lag or just crappy editing. It actually became physically difficult to watch, even though you could tell how much care and effort went into the basic staging of the action scenes.
The second half of the film devolves into sheer idiocy. La Resistence shows up, contrivances happen one after another, and it all ends in a silly climax with the "final boss", who could easily have simply shot the hero and ended the whole thing.
The most interesting parts of the movie revolve around Society, a game where people get to buy the right to temporarily hijack other people's bodies and indulge themselves. The people literally selling themselves are (ostensibly) willing participants, but in almost all cases are simply poor people desperate enough to allow themselves to be used temporarily.
They could have explored the sociological ramifications of allowing such behavior. There are obviously prostitution parallels. Would there be rules as what you could do in someone's body? Would there be cyber-police that would arrest you if you, for example, endangered the life of the person you control? They could have explored what kind of people would even want to hijack other people and use them in such manors.
The closest we get to that is some fat shut-in guy who's perfectly willing to watch a guy murder a couple of people. And gets off on it.
Somehow, I get the feeling that this movie was originally pitched as being just about Society. But some asshole decided to use that premise to turn it into an action flick. So instead of a dramatic, compelling work exploring the nature of how the wealthy prey upon the poor, what we have is a typical 00's-style action flick, in the worst possible sense of those words.