Incontrol (2017)

Incontrol: Directed by Kurtis David Harder. With Sarah Troyer, Anja Savcic, Valerie Planche, Christopher Rosamond. 4 university students hook up to a machine allowing them to become one of their fellow students – e.g. allowing them each to party as one of the rich and beautiful. The long hook-ups start seriously affecting their normal selves.

“I have to say up front that the basic theme of the film – being able to experience existence in any other physical state than being in oneu0026#39;s own body – is of great personal interest to me, both personally and, at one point, professionally.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSo, the filmmakers were at a simultaneous advantage and disadvantage, with respect to me.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThat said: from an objective view, they did pretty well with what one can assume of their budget, and the script largely worked with the concept of exploring the meaning of the self alongside the potential trappings brought by the ability to manipulate the reality of that self.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eAgain, in context of what the cast and crew had to work with, the acting is above b-movie mediocre, albeit not so much as to distract from the obvious and expected dropped lines or unrealized punch points in the script.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eSpeaking of which, the script laid out a scenario with great potential only to get too bogged down in minutiae and unnecessary dialogue.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eI still go back to the ambition and creativity of the premise – body-swapping-type stories have been done many times, but this falls outside the norm due to the psycho-physical interaction and heavier philosophical questions that ensue. This isnu0026#39;t low-budget Face-Off or another failed attempt at the ideas behind Transcendence. These guys went for the gold.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThey didnu0026#39;t hit gold due to budget, but at least they tried.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eA worthy watch for any sci-fi or sci-leaning fantasy fan. A solid 6 rating – that rating meaning at least 60% of all Iu0026#39;ve ever seen were lesser than this in some way.u003cbr/u003eu003cbr/u003eThen again, thatu0026#39;s out of at least 10k, so you do the math.”