Review: Overstuffed 'LX 2048' Says Too Much, and Nothing

Beautifully shot, the sci-fi head-scratcher "LX-2048" fails to trip the light fantastic in a confusing, and cynical, thriller.

Written and directed by Guy Moshe, the film's title would lead you to believe the story is about a drug that allows people to avoid the pain that living in a sunless society has given them. You see, the sun is so lethal you can be scorched in seconds. So, most living is either done at night, or in virtual reality, and they all need to be calmed down to endure it.

James D'Arcy ("Cloud Atlas") plays Adam Bird, a dying man who wants to make sure his family is taken care of after his death. His cold, estranged wife (Anna Brewster) isn't thrilled with Adam, as he is obsessed with work and likes to live his life during the daytime hours. She and their two kids live so much in the "realm" that reality has taken on a new definition.

But wait, there's also something called P3, which allows a person to have a clone of themselves arrive at their spouse's/family's doorstep a few days after they pass away. These clones are ordered ahead of time and can be altered by the spouse of family member that will be living with them.

Adam and his wife took the P3 option early on, and she's cool with that. Now that they don't even live together if he dies, she'll get the better version. But Adam just wants everyone to live in the real world and be happy – all of them together. Enter the creator of the clones, a man named Donald Stein (a wasted Delroy Lindo) who offers Adam another option because, you see, Adam has been having an online affair with an avatar in the realm. Are you following all of this? No? Neither was I.

There's a point in "LX-2048" where you sort of just give up and let the images pass in front of you, hoping that at some point it will make sense or there will be a point to the madness. Moshe has included so many ideas that the film is in need of streamlining. As it stands, there are questions about the meaning of love, the ethics of cloning, whether an affair with a computer creation is actually cheating, and other ideas. It all becomes too much for one film to handle.

The film looks pretty great and the performances are good, too, but trying to figure out exactly what the story and the endgame are is another thing. So much happens that almost nothing ends up happening. Which, I know, sounds odd, but in the end you don't even really know what you've just watched or what Moshe was trying to say.

And the titular LX-2048? It's barely a plot point, and it gets lost in the boundless other plot points scattered throughout the hour and forty-three-minute running time. This is a drug not worth taking.