Movie Review - I Origins

 I Origins *** (R) Here’s a fascinating sci-fi drama that’s unusually long on the mental, rather than the visceral, especially for summers, which have become ever more dominated by superheroes, aliens and escalating levels of computer-generated mayhem. A research biologist uses his lifelong fixation on eyes to create a database from which he hopes to prove the lack of an Intelligent Design or all-powerful deity behind our existence. The project is to genetically manipulate a sightless lower life form into a version with eyes, which supposedly will establish evolution beyond all doubt.

Starting with the uniqueness of everyone’s eyes, as is true for fingerprints, retinal scans become common for IDs in high-tech security systems. That leads to world-wide charting for various purposes, beginning with infants. But when his newborn daughter’s scan shows up as belonging to an adult male, the plot takes another turn. He discovers that the gent in question had died shortly before her birth. Since our eyes are neurally connected to the brain, could this be evidence of reincarnation?

Writer/director Mike Cahill’s idea of science first possibly debunking basic theology, then potentially confirming it, is admirably ambitious. How well he does at either is left up to the viewer. (7/25/14)