Subservience (2024) dir S.K. Dale
Yet another mediocre sci-fi / thriller about AI and human-like robots. Michele Morrone plays Nick, a happily married father of 2 young children, struggling to raise them and do his construction site job since his wife (Madeline Zima) is seriously ill in hospital waiting for a heart transplant. So he buys Alice (Megan Fox), an almost completely life-like home-help / childcare / cook / cleaner robot. There are other similar robots working in many places such as hospitals, bars and construction sites (adding an additional plot element). Without spoilers (although IMHO there really isn't much to spoil) it's hard to say much more. But “stuff happens”, somewhat predictably if you consider the situation of wife in hospital, very hot nanny / maid robot at home etc etc. What is interesting is Alice starts to deviate from what she has been programmed to do, there's tensions with respect to a former colleague of Nick's, and these both lead to a reasonable action style tense ending with fights, shoot-outs and car chases. But overall it can only be described as OK. If you want action then watch an action film with more action than this. If you want drama then watch a drama film with more a more meaningful plot and better acting than this.
There's some holes in the plot for me. Other than the robots it looks like present day. There is no other indication that this has to be either somewhat in the future or set in an alternative higher-tech reality. Nick's wife needs a new heart; if they have the technology to make such like-like robots (i.e. one that looks exactly like Megan Fox) then surely they would have mastered artificial organs for humans. Some of the other robots are too lifelike. I can understand Alice's appearance since she is designed to live in a home, although you might want to make such robots a bit less physically tempting a straight male owner. But there's no reason an entire synthetic construction site crew need to actually look like the humans' they replaced. And also no reason for them not be working constantly (the scene we encountered these is when they have been locked away for the night).
There's one truly ridiculous aspect for me, for which I have knocked off another point for stupid prudishness. It has couple of mild s*x scenes. In one you can clearly see the actors are naked but without any full-frontal nudity. At one point the woman's breasts are briefly shown, but she has no n*pples! They must have been digitally removed. Why!? It's got enough to make it a 15 certificate, showing a couple of n*pples is surely not going to change that!
There is one interesting plot element, but I have to put that with a spoiler warning.
4 / 10
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