Self/less

A dying billionaire (Ben Kingsley in a glorified cameo) pays a fortune for a radical (and secret) medical procedure to transfer his consciousness into a healthy young body (Ryan Reynolds)—then learns that the supposedly genetically engineered body comes with sporadic built-in memories of its own. The script by brothers David and Alex Pastor is a rather preposterous riff on a much better movie, John Frankenheimer's Seconds (1966) with Rock Hudson. Plot holes gape on all sides, and at 116 minutes the Pastors and director Tarsem Singh give us ample time to notice them. Still, the movie is fun in spite of itself; Ryan is his usual sturdy self, and Matthew Goode is smoothly sinister as the presiding doctor. Others include Natalie Martinez, Victor Garber and Michelle Dockery (in another glorified cameo). J.L.