Le clone

Thomas (Elie Semoun) is a shy computer scientist who created a virtual person called Leo from a software program. But the latter is sick of his life and years for getting out of it to explore the exterior world. One evening he manages to do so by taking the appearance of a cleaning operative (Dieudonné) and it's a chain of problems that awaits for Thomas.

The starting point and the direction this two-bit comedy followed weren't that much fresh but at least a minimum of rigor and attention was required from the crew to make this menu watchable. But the dearth of pristine ideas touched the scenarists and the efforts deployed by the crew are hardly discernible. In short, there is strictly nothing to save from this flavorless product which lazily follows a constricting, ultra-mapped scheme. The whole affair also plumbs because of a heap of commonplaces used as bridges for a skimpy story. As if it wasn't enough, a flabby directing makes all the comical effects fall flat. Anyway, many of them are so corny and well-worn that the audience remains impassive.

Elie Semoun and Dieudonné are as expressive as zombies and one can regret their one man shows. Ditto for the humorists Jean-Marie Bigard and Franck Dobosc who hold here wasted minor roles. The glaring shoddiness that wraps this film from the first minutes plunges the audience in a crushing torpor. And however, the thrust was interesting. Had it been given a better treatment...

A lot of French comedians are now hitting the big screen with mixed results. This movie is better viewed on a small screen, since it has the look and feel of a TV movie. Everything in there is nicey, nicey, almost to the point of blandness. Never really boring, but highly forgettable.