Dual – Film Review

Upon receiving a terminal diagnosis, Sarah opts for a cloning procedure to ease her loss on her friends and family. When she makes a sudden and miraculous recovery, her attempts to decommission her clone fail, leading to a court-mandated duel to the death. Now, she has one year to train her mind and body for the fight of her life.

The opening scene of Riley Stearns‘ Dual is incredibly shocking, disturbing, confusing, and mind-numbing all at once. It subtly lets you know exactly what kind of movie you’re about to watch. It shows just how disturbed this world is and it seriously gets under your skin. Long story short, it serves as an excellent opening for a film that will surely be equally excellent all the way through… right?

Well, unfortunately not. Despite a solid opening and first act, Dual ultimately ends up being a ridiculously bland, unsatisfying, and sometimes unintentionally hilarious film that seemed as if the folks over at Saturday Night Live tried to make a horror movie or something. Stearns’ direction is fine and there is really nothing bad about it, but it sort of felt a little amateurish in certain scenes. Of course, the more movies he makes, the better he will be at what he does, but I couldn’t help but feel as though this film might’ve been a little better had somebody else taken the reigns.

His script is also a huge issue here. As mentioned before, the setup and first act are actually quite fantastic, letting us see glimpses into this twisted, messed-up world that these characters populate. What kind of a world enforces a dual to the death? Why are their clones roaming the Earth like it’s no problem? How will that cause issues for the world as a whole in the long run? These are all philosophical questions that the film never decides to explore even a little bit.

To be honest, the majority of the film simply follows Karen Gillan‘s Sarah preparing for her eventual dual with her clone. We see scenes of her moping around. Aaron Paul serves as her trainer in what feels like a strangely miscast role. Gillan is great in the film and she truly gives it her all, but I couldn’t help but feel as though she should’ve used her talents elsewhere. The character work here is disappointingly weak.

There are occasional moments in which the film finally soars and some scenes are quite gripping, but the majority of this film is utterly boring with a sense of direction that’s truly lacking. The script on display legitimately felt like a first draft that was thrown together quite quickly. Character motivations are thrown completely out the window along with development and logic. It’s a film that’s supposed to unnerve you deeply and make you feel cold and grimy by the end, but the only thing you’ll want to do after the end credits roll is put on a better movie.

Dual offers an exceptional lead performance from Karen Gillan, but is an otherwise disappointingly flat science-fiction horror thriller with a plot that gets stretched way too far.