Take Ryan Reynolds, who was so understatedly brilliant in Woman in Gold, team him up with elegant chameleon Ben Kingsley, British Matthew Goode who has been seen in everything lately from The Good Wife to The Imitation Game, and Michelle Dockery (Downton Abbey). Then throw in Derek Luke, Natalie Martinez and Victor Garber for good measure.

Cast these fine actors in a provocative psychological sci-fi plot about Damian, a super rich mover and shaker (Kingsley) who is dying of cancer and opts to undergo a radical medical procedure that puts his mind into a fresh new body (Reynolds). But of course the body is not so fresh, and has a history that comes to the surface when the prescribed medication is not taken. Make the movie a treat for the eye with the lush cinematography by Brendan Galvin, and let Brian Duffy’s novel editing allow it to skip fast forward and back again by just a few minutes.

You’d think all this would add up to an intriguing film now, wouldn’t you? So how did director Tarsem Singh (Mirror, Mirror, The Cell) manage to muck it all up? Spanish screenwriters David and Alex Pastor are partially to blame. They gave us vague, unsympathetic characters who are hard to take under our emotional wings, and they break a lot of the rules that they set up in the first place. For example how and why does Damien, who has been presented as a cold, ruthless egomaniac, suddenly decide to risk everything (including his $250 million investment) and savagely murder dozens in an effort to save the lives of two people he hardly knows? And why tease us with the actress everyone knows as “Lady Mary” in the beginning of the film, if she’s only getting a handful of lines?

Self/Less is surprisingly lacking in depth and suspense. You might even find yourself dozing off for a minute or two, as the woman next to me did, but there’s no need to concern yourself. You won’t miss much. For some strange reason, Self/Less turned out to be strangely flat and shallow.  It’s not a total waste of time and money, but you’ll probably leave the theater without much of a memory of what happened in the film, or what you felt while watching it.

Rated PG-13

1 Hour 57 Minutes

Get times and tickets at Fandango.com.

SELF/LESS Review — Oddly Emotion/Less