The Duplicate 2002 Horror Movie Review

_The Duplicate_ is a deceitfully packaged movie. I bought the DVD based in part on the cover, as it looked for lack of a better word very “sci fi”, with maybe overtones or homage to other science fiction films such as perhaps _The Matrix_ or _Minority Report_, and in part because it was a movie having to do with parallel universes, one of my favorite sub-genres of science fiction.


The cover had nothing to do with the movie! Nothing whatsoever! I don’t recognize the people depicted on the cover in the movie and certainly not the scene. The cover implies something high tech, sterile white rooms, computers, etc. You see none of that in the movie, none! The movie takes place in restaurants, apartments, offices, streets, alleys, etc, but not in anything not found in today’s world here and now.


The movie was not awful just not very good. Yes, it had to do with parallel universes, kind of, not that you ever get to see them or even at least the rift or dimensional door to them. It just wasn’t as engaging as it could be and didn’t seem to have much of a budget.


The basic premise is that there is this old theater that has on its stage a small locked room. For some reason every 20 years several people show up from a parallel universe and journey through t his door (prior to being a theater the building was among other things the office of an optometrist). These people, duplicates to people in our world,  journey through the door and into our world, apparently coming from some parallel universe very close to ours but with one major difference; these duplicates have the exact opposite personality to their counterparts on our world. If the person in our world is a mass murdering psychopath, the duplicate if he shows up is a mild-mannered, peaceful accountant for instance. Though this is not explained, these duplicates know that they are not in their own universe even though the “originals” in our universe are not always immediately aware that their duplicate is here. Also, these duplicates, if evil, will try to take over the life of the person they are duplicate to, eventually murdering the “original.” If the duplicate is good and the original evil, the duplicate does the best they can to clear their name or just plan survive. It is not explained why these duplicates show up in our universe or how.


One of the two main characters is Karen Addams, who in our universe is a mild-mannered reporter, worried about keeping her job as she apparently is not very successful. When she starts to get credit for brilliant stories at the magazine she works for that she never remembered writing or submitting, when people start to tell her they just talked to minutes ago when she hadn’t seen them all day, and when some objects disappear from he apartment while other things appear, she starts to suspect something is up. Is someone impersonating her?


The other main character is Greg Johnson, who is this world is a serial killer of sorts, whose duplicate seeks out the our world Karen and says he is innocent and doesn’t know what is going on.


The premise I guess is ok but I have never cared for the parallel universe concept in genre fiction in which everything is the same except people are the opposite of what they are in this world. Um, well, then everything wouldn’t be the same, by definition, not even close! And why would everyone in that world be the opposite?


The acting was barely adequate, the action scenes were iffy (lots of running and some badly done hand-to-hand combat between the originals and the duplicates), it took too long to get to the evil real world Greg Johnson, and overall the movie just didn’t impress. I liked the music though, particularly in the opening scenes, too bad the movie didn’t deliver. I would say skip this one!