Freejack

Saw Freejack, a sci-fi film set 18 years in the future, in distant year of 2009(!) when people are able to live on by uploading their brains into computers and hijacking another person's body (apparently minds can't last inside of computers indefinitely because reasons.) Bodies from 2009 are for some reason unsuitable for this process, so they teleport someone from the past moments before their own death. Our hero is a plucky race-car driver who is summoned by this process and must deal with a super-violent future where social stratification is so severe that the rich live in a Fritz-Lang's-Metropolis-style city of glass and steel while the lower depths live in Escape-From-LA-style squalor.

The film follows the racer's adventures fleeing from the forces of body-snatchery. The usual business takes place: some friends become enemies, some enemies become friends, an evil mega-corp is involved as well as a punk/leather club where the hero is almost caught (everyone in the future wears only revealing fetish gear to clubs. This is established fact. Free film idea: people in techno clubs in the future wear only heavy, ornate coats and florid wigs.)

The film covers up any interesting ideas with breathless chase sequences and elaborate double-crosses. This is fine, I guess, but I wish they'd done more world-building. Why, for example, is the evil mega-corp's logo clearly a jack? And how are the riff-raff kept away from the richies? These questions don't really matter of course, but I'm not very captivated by yet another car chase. There's a lot in the film that's good anyway though, so don't think too badly of it. There's a swearing nun who is hilarious for example, and a wonderful bunch of imagery is spilled out during the climax of the film. So all in all this film, like a lot of films, is not bad, just unimportant and fluffy. Not boring but not very entertaining either, it's kind of a meh film for me.