Mechanical karmas

Rating: Null/10 (24 September 2011)

I believe none of this quite works - as in Super 8 recently, but in a different milieu of sci-fi - because the filmmaker takes from where these ideas have already reached us in the most polished, perfectly processed way possible, and therefore with the deeper insights already airbrushed off; so it's all a tepid rehash with nowhere to go, the nested realities from Inception, the endless returns from Groundhog day.
The techno mumbo jumbo that explains away the mechanisms that we need to know all takes place in the bits between the action. So we literally emerge from plot to be informed about our place in it and how that placement - enforced from above - ripples up and down. Up, there is the military-secret government complex, itself evil, battling evil. Down in non-reality is the hapless schmuck looking for where that evil is rooted. The War on Terror stuff make it seem hopelessly broad-minded, but I suppose money minds were looking to capitalize on the 10 year anniversary since the terrible event.
Oh, of course our guy forms emotional connections in that non- reality that are supposed to challenge real/false boundaries; and will provide the framework about coming to terms with loss and the faith in transience beyond.
It's all lifted from the warrior lore that has driven holy war since before Islam, but fancied up with a bunch of gibberish about quantum physics; so the warrior commits himself to jihad - meaning in its original context, a struggle in the service of god - with the promise of death after life, only to discover upon completion that the heavenly abode does wait for him with rewards.
So, a spiritual insight is attempted but the problem is that the notions do not align; what essentially our protagonist should have been searching for is his mirror, someone like himself another pawn in devious schemes, and through this self-discovering, self-destroying journey gain understanding of the controlling powers above; instead he merely discovers a caricature of petulant evil, and remains clueless about the extent of the evil above that wouldn't grant him even death.
It's rather insipid overall, with mechanical workings about the karma that moves its universe. We're led to believe it all ends with a moment frozen in time - a call for appreciation of the small pleasures - but then it doubles back to move forward. It's either a dishonest camera or it was lying all along, like it did about the face.