Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this sick world.
‘The more I hear about it the more it stinks’
Like a surprising number of the films we review, The resurrection of Zachary Wheeler has a great premise.
‘I used to think that, I’m not sure any longer’
A committee of experts decides which terminally ill public figures deserve to be saved via organ transplants.
‘You have had an entire internal support systems transplant’
with organs grown from what amount to stem cell clones.
‘Dr Redding takes synthetic female ova and artificially inseminates them’
This sort of thing still provokes debate today
and definitely sounds like something I can take seriously
‘Jake, put me on camera’
Okay this will make it more difficult.
Yes it’s Leslie Nielsen- Legend-
‘Yeah, that would be about right’
Whose deadpan delivery in better known films does make it hard to take anything he says seriously in this one.
‘Couple of young guys, got bulges in their coats that don’t come from muscles’
and the writers aren’t making it any easier.
Particularly towards the end when Nielsen’s maverick reporter accidentally rescues a missing senator’s brain dead clone instead of the man himself.
‘I’m gonna get you out of here.’
'Get out, I need your car'
'Need my car?'
From the files of Police Squad.
Surely you can tell the man’s a vegetable.
‘He’s a vegetable’
And don’t call me Shirley.
‘That’d make me look like an idiot’
But the film’s bigger problem is that everyone’s so stupid.
‘I wish it was that simple’
This is an organisation that can make the whole world think that the senator is on a fishing holiday,
fooling the public, news outlets, his office, everyone!
So how does Nielsen track them down?
‘Carson truck rental huh? Thank you.'
They rented a truck?
They’ve got a vast complex in New mexico but at the last budget meeting someone stood up and said,
‘whoa, whoa, whoa, we’re going to buy a truck?
Some of these rental companies are very reasonable. Ladies and Gentlemen, we can lease!’
‘I don’t think I like that’
Then there’s this hugely powerful company’s attempts to capture Nielsen.
‘Subject Walsh is now driving in our unit 7, move to intercept’
If you know he’s in the car, why would you announce your plans across radio!
What sort of people do you hire?
'He has a brain but it has a very limited capacity.'
And it’s not just the bad guys, here’s the senator meeting his clone.
‘Why does he look like me?’
It’s a clone. How stupid are you?
‘Soon as I get out of here I’ll do everything I can to put a stop to this’
Oh is that death warrant for me? Yeah, sure I’ll sign it.
Can anybody be this dumb? I have my doubts
‘Doubts?!’
This is a film with a lot to say about science and the sanctity of life.
‘How can a group of men assume to control the Divine right of life and death?’
but for film so obsessed with what makes us human it has stunningly little humanity.
‘Are you really interested in humanity?’
I really am.
The film’s obsessed with ideas over people and story
to the point that one character just vanishes and the story is left completely up in the air!
‘Jake, the story’s over here’
Bit of advice for any screenwriters out there,
if you don’t have a meaningful conclusion, just having your characters look at each other doesn’t really cover it.
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