While I wrote about “Slender Man” last year, I mentioned
that trying to analyze a movie so completely devoid of quality
was similar to going into a dissociative
state. All of what I thought I knew about
movies suddenly meant nothing, because
nothing
meant
anything.
Sure,
shoot
every single scene of the movie without a
light on. Completely abandon characters
and plotlines. Kill Joey King with a tree.
What the hell does it matter? I thought
that would be my greatest challenge as a
reviewer: putting into words that “Slender
Man” wasn’t just a bad movie, it was a
nothing movie. Enter “Replicas.”
Keanu Reeves (“John Wick”) stars as
William Foster, a brilliant scientist who
is this close — this close — to a world-
changing breakthrough in transferring
human consciousness from a biological
subject to a synthetic one if his family and
his boss would just get out of his way with
their “ethical questions” and their “board
meetings.” Luckily for him, his family is
quickly killed in a car crash, providing him
with not only a relief from those moralistic
voices of reason but with new test subjects.
Retreating to his home, he clones his
family and begins the work that will see
their consciousness transferred from their
old bodies to their new ones. What could possibly go wrong?
Everything.
Everything could possibly go wrong.
In order to get at the heart of the journey “Replicas” takes
you on, you almost have to break it up into chunks. Trying to
digest the whole thing at once can only lead to pain. First, let’s
go back to before the beginning. The film was shot in mid-2016
— produced by the not-at-all-fake-sounding Company Films
— and screened at the Toronto International Film Festival in
September of 2017, where it was sold to the very-real-why-do-
you-ask Entertainment Studios Motion
Pictures. The first trailer dropped Oct.
of that same year, promising the sort of
movie that you’ll
find on Reeves’s
IMDb ten years
from
now
and
say out loud, “He
was in that?” In
lieu of a release
date, the trailer
just
promised
“Replicas”
was
“coming soon.”
A
year
and
a
half
passed.
To
put
it
in
perspective,
Barack
Obama
was
still
president
when
“Replicas”
was
shot,
and
candidacies
for
the 2020 election
were
being
announced when
it was released.
It took a while.
Curiously,
“Replicas”
didn’t
undergo
any
reshoots that would necessitate such a
long wait, and by all appearances, it’s
the same movie that was screened at TIFF 2017. Expectations
weren’t low for “Replicas,” because by the time it found its
way to theaters, everyone had basically forgotten it existed.
Another trailer dropped, and again as befitting a Keanu
Reeves
movie
that
doesn’t
begin with the words “John
Wick,”
everyone
basically
shrugged.
Now we can get to the movie.
That lack of expectations may
have played a role in my initial
reaction to the film, or at least
its first act, which takes the
form of a trashy Frankenstein
homage that, while not exactly
high
art,
is
entertaining
nonetheless for its willingness
to commit to tropes usually
found in horror movies. It
plays like a SyFy original
movie, but you know what?
There’s nothing wrong with a
little dumb fun every once in a
while.
Then
everything
starts
changing. Plotlines drop like
flies; in the most egregious
example, the bodies of Reeves’s
deceased
family
members
simply
disappear
between
scenes.
Director
Jeffrey
Nachmanoff (“Traitor”) starts
listening to his worst instincts,
resulting in silly directing choice after silly directing choice,
like cheesy zooms before obvious trailer lines that resulted in
my first unintentional laughs of the movie.
They would not be the last.
From here, it’s hard to discuss
what happens without delving into
spoilers, and given that I think
“Replicas” is a film that has to be
seen to be believed — and by that
same token, should be seen with a
couple of friends and more than a
couple of beers — I wouldn’t want to
rob you of the impact of seeing some
of this for the first time. So in the
most general of terms, the horror
stylings give way to the cliché sci-
fi thriller you’d expect from a movie
with the tagline “Some humans are
unstoppable.” It’s bad, but more
than that, it’s simply boring.
Then everything changes again.
Where the first shift was a slow
decline from trashy B-movie to the
sort of snooze-fest Januaries are
made of, it’s possible to pinpoint
the exact moment that “Replicas”
seals its fate as one of the most
memorably bad movies in recent
memory. From this moment on, there
are more shots at canted angles than
there are normal shots, as if the
cinematographer passed out halfway
through production and was clinging
to the camera for support. There are
multiple conspiracies, multiple heel
turns and multiple laugh-worthy
moments — all before the killer robot shows up, because of
course there’s a killer robot. I’d say the effects used to bring
it to life look like something out of a video game, but frankly,
I’ve been playing a lot of “Red Dead Redemption 2” lately
and I think my go-to pan for bad effects would be insulting
to video games if applied here. It looks like the effects artist
took their kids’ box of crayons and just drew a robot on the
screen. By this point, “Replicas” barely resembles a real movie
as much as it does a movie pitched by a fictional character in
a scene meant to satirize everything wrong with Hollywood.
If Keanu Reeves ever starred in a sequel to “Tropic Thunder,”
this is the fake trailer they’d show before the movie.
I don’t know what to say about “Replicas” besides what I
already have. You have to see it to believe it. There’s no way
to properly quantify it. Even describing in exact detail what
happens on screen wouldn’t do it justice because there’s
no way to capture how quickly it moves between different
sorts of bad — from affable trash to boring trash to a sort of
transcendent trash that forced me to reconsider how I think
about movies. If a movie has some highs, does that rectify
the fact that it also has some of the most abysmal lows I’ve
ever encountered? Or does its slow descent into madness taint
everything that came before it? Was I wrong to think there
was any good in it to begin with or was everything I thought
was remotely remarkable just the result of me believing these
things would pay off later or that the writer knew what a pay
off was? Are there any lessons to be learned here or is the
whole thing just a trial sent by God to test the faith of film
fans?
I don’t know. I just don’t know. I feel like Luke Skywalker
trying to decide if Darth Vader can still be redeemed even
though he blew up a planet. “Replicas” is good. “Replicas” is
bad. “Replicas” is all.
ENTERTAINMENT STUDIOS MOTION PICTURES
Ann Arbor’s music scene is
one of tradition and variance.
Specifically, the venues in Ann
Arbor play a crucial role in the
city’s musical history. Hill
Auditorium, in conjunction
with the University Musical
Society, is known for hosting
some of the most legendary
orchestras
of
all
time
—
the New York and Berlin
Philharmonics, to name a few.
The Blind Pig brings in a wide
variety of punk, popular and
local musicians to a historic
venue that big names of the
past have walked through.
But one of the most intimate
venues that Ann Arbor owes a
significant part of its history
to over the last 50 years is The
Ark. The Ark plays an integral
role in bringing folk music to
Ann Arbor, hosting over 300
different acts of varying styles
throughout the year, from
folk to jazz to bluegrass and
everything in between.
Founded
in
1965,
The
Ark began as a nonprofit
organization,
and
has
remained
the
same
since,
aside from a brief stint in the
’70s. Times had become tough,
and the venue had to rely on
ticket sales to keep afloat. The
Ark was able to get back on
track, able to return to their
mission with the initiation of an
idea in 1977. That idea was The
Ann Arbor Folk Festival.
“Those first couple of Folk
Festivals sort of came out of
desperate measures and these
artists coming together saying,
‘we’ll do this show and support
this
venue
that’s
important
to us as performers as well as
the community’,” Barb Chaffer
Authier, the marketing director at
The Ark, said in an interview with
The Daily. Since then, the festival
has remained an important aspect
of The Ark’s legacy.
A few things have changed since
1977, when the festival was held
on only one night in the Power
Center. It wasn’t until the mid-
’80s when the festival switched
over to Hill Auditorium, bringing
in headliner Bonnie Raitt. Back
then, headliners consisted of local
artists, as opposed to the huge
names that are brought into town
today.
In 2003, the festival added a
second night. “Hill Auditorium
went
under
renovation
in
2003, which is the year we
moved back to the Michigan
Theater,” Authier explained.
“And because we now had
a crowd of over 3000 that
were attending the festival
… that’s when we started
doing two nights.” When the
festival moved back to Hill
Auditorium, The Ark decided
to keep the festival two days
long due to the success of the
previous year.
Having
more
time
for
different acts, the festival
decided to push the boundaries
with some of the artists they
brought in. “You hear Folk
Festival and you might be
thinking ‘Kumbaya’ or singer-
songwriter
or
something
like that, but it really gave
us the opportunity to put a
bigger variety of music on the
lineup,” Authier explained.
The
Ann
Arbor
Folk
Festival has not only allowed
The Ark to remain nonprofit
by becoming one of its biggest
fundraisers, but it has also
made Ann Arbor one of the
most well-known spots in the
country for folk music. The
Ann Arbor Folk Festival takes
place this Friday and Saturday,
Jan. 25 and 26, at Hill Auditorium.
In addition to the festival, many
of the artists on the lineup will be
returning to The Ark this winter
and spring. Tickets for those
shows are on sale now.
FILM REVIEW
‘Replicas’ is terrible, but it’s also pretty terrific
JEREMIAH VANDERHELM
Daily Arts Writer
42nd Ann Arbor Folk
Festival
Friday, Jan. 25th & Saturday, Jan.
26th
Doors @ 6 p.m.
Hill Auditorium
$42-$60 single night,
$75-$110 series
COMMUNITY CULTURE PREVIEW
Folk Fest to be fully fantastic
RYAN COX
Daily Arts Writer
Like the entirety of
Vice News, “Temptation
Island”
nags
at
my
inability to resist trivial
media. A reboot of the
2001 hit, the show centers
on four couples who are
questioning
their
relationships
and
places
them on an
island
with
a handful of
hot
singles
whose
sole
purpose
is
to
get
the
couples
to
cheat on each
other.
If
“Temptation
Island”
sounds
like
it
was
genetically
modified
in
a lab to be as scandalous
as
possible,
that’s
because
it
definitely
was. One moment I’m
getting “Jersey Shore”-
style
bickering,
the
next
moment
I
have
tension inspired by “The
Bachelor” — all of this is
only made better by the
host Mark L. Walberg.
This
man
makes
me
think he would’ve hosted
“Survivor”
if
only
he
didn’t get too “in his
feels.” The show might as
well include a disclaimer
warning the audience that
the show is best viewed
while scrolling through
your Instagram feed in
one hand and typing a
half-finished essay in the
other.
Despite the low barrier
of
entry,
“Temptation
Island” isn’t a bad show.
In fact, I was sufficiently
entertained
while
watching it. The vicarious
nature of watching other
couples potentially cheat
on another gave me a
giddy, omniscient feeling.
Watching
“Temptation
Island” is akin to being
the cool kid that everyone
tells their secrets to, yet
not being expected to
give any dirt in return.
This
sometimes
blurs
the line between genuine
and
scripted
reactions
but if you actually stop to
think about it you realize
it doesn’t matter because
it’s “Temptation Island,”
and who cares.
Though
“Temptation
Island” exists solely to
fulfill our need for gossip,
comparing
the
2000’s
version to this current
rendition, an interesting
conversation about how
reality
television
has
changed
before
our
eyes
is
provoked.
Today, it is
expected
that
everyone
who appears
on
reality
television
will
be
palatable
enough
to
be
deemed
attractive by
the
average
viewer.
However,
if
you
compare the
singles who appeared on
the 2000’s version and the
singles in the reboot, you
can see plainly the drastic
shift in our expectations
for who can be on a show
that is supposed to be
present reality. It’s almost
as entertaining as the
show itself to watch USA
Network dictate what the
“ideal American” bachelor
and bachelorette looks,
dresses and acts like. And
if that means cheating on
your significant other, so
be it.
ELI LUSTIG
For the Daily
The latest tempting TV
“Temptation Island”
Season Premiere
USA
Tuesdays @ 10 p.m.
TV REVIEW
“Replicas”
Ann Arbor 20 + IMAX, Goodrich
Quality 16
Entertainment Studios Motion
Pictures
To put it in perspective,
Barack Obama was
still president when
“Replicas” was shot, and
candidacies for the 2020
election were being
announced when it was
released.
5 — Friday, January 25, 2019
Arts
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com