Movie Review - The Lazarus Effect

The Lazarus Effect * (out of 5) (PG-13) A handful of young scientists at a fictional college in Berkeley, CA are trying to literally bring back the dead to give more time for emergency medical teams to save patients in crisis. They fail to revive a pig, but succeed with a dog. Questions arise as to side effects of the return - including possible psychoses. When one of the docs (Olivia Wilde) dies during another experiment, she becomes Patient #2. Unpleasantness follows in this amazingly defective attempt at a sci-fi thriller.

Co-star Mark Duplass used to be smarter. He and his brother Jay crafted indie faves like The Puffy Chair and Cyrus before Mark shifted more into acting. He apparently can’t pick scripts as well as he wrote them. The visuals are muddled; the basic premise mixing tech with childhood trauma is poorly orchestrated; a subplot about corporate greed vs. scientific purity is dangled to little avail; the gory potential is underserved by keeping it under the “R” level. Even worse, it formulaically sets up a sequel. Let’s hope there are no takers. (2/27/15)