Automata
Studio: Millennium Entertainment
Directed by Gabe Ibañez
Oct 10, 2014
Web Exclusive
At its best, Gabe Ibañez’s Automata is the kind of visually rich, idea-driven SF sleeper that will always find a home in our collective unconscious, holding up a mirror to the horrors nested in our march towards an increasingly contemporary future world. At its worst, it is derivative of tropes mined more creatively in its stylistic forebears Blade Runner and Brazil, but without the innovation of the former or the satire of the latter. It’s a dour, exposition-heavy film with no real voice that nonetheless feels beautifully lived-in, with great performances from Antonio Banderas, Birgitte Sørensen, and some quite poorly treated toddler-like androids that demand our deepest sympathy.
These androids, known as pilgrims, are the automata of the film’s title. But where promo press for Automata hints at a robot uprising, the possibility of said uprising is what drives this film, as a highly evolved “biokernel” found in a rogue ’droid presents the possibility of a robot that can betray its programmed servitude. Yes, you’ve heard this before but while this isn’t particularly original territory, the film presents an astonishingly convincing range of human emotional reactions to the evolving semi-humanoid pilgrims: inexplicable rage, a sense of elitism, and outright fear—all in contrast to the pilgrims’ to-a-fault rationalism.
Banderas’ Jack (why is an obviously Latino man named Jack?) plays a post-apocalyptic cop assigned to learn the truth behind these newly autonomous robots while dealing with the stresses of becoming a new dad in an environmentally plagued, mid-collapse Earth. He’s got a lot on his plate and he juggles it well as does Sørensen, his pregnant wife who seems to wear the depression of her reality and the hope of her unborn child on her face in perfect balance. Less interesting is Melanie Griffith as the film’s unnecessary expositor at the halfway mark while the film’s anonymous big bad fights the automata in a limp climax.
It’s frustrating how close Automata comes to being a great film. But the sure-footing of its forebears—whose compelling concepts are married to breathtakingly engrossing stories—makes it feel like a misstep too many.
Author rating: 5.5/10
Average reader rating: 7/10
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Comments
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July 16th 2015
8:50am
Jack isn’t a cop, he works for the company that creates and repairs the Pilgrims and his job is basically to determine whether people are lying when they submit a claim of damage to the company. He is then assigned to figure out what’s going on with the Pilgrim that seemed to be breaking its protocol. That relationship with the company is I think pretty important to some of the themes in the movie, though it is a bit more difficult to explain in a few words. He does sort of team up with a cop.
Other than that I agree with pretty much everything in the review. A decent movie that I was happy to have watched, but one that certainly falls short of its potential.
September 10th 2015
3:10pm
I love this movie. It it a great action and thriller movie. It is set in the future, in the year 2044.
April 2nd 2020
12:07am
This is a fair review of the movie. It really is a tragic miss. There are astonishing special effects, here. Some good acting—although there is one absolutely terrible performance by Melanie Griffiths who, apparently, has forgotten how to act since the last time we saw her in anything. Admittedly, she’s stuck in a pointless role that is at least mercifully brief. I believe she also voiced one of the robots.
There are even some very good scenes. And yes, even though we’ve seen most of the ideas presented here before, they are worthy ideas.
The story is just so poorly constructed and proportioned. It’s also delivered almost entirely through exposition.
Several of the characters seem to fulfill no function at all—particularly the Robert Forster role. Unlike Melanie Griffiths, he doesn’t even deliver any necessary exposition.
It always comes down to the script and the script for this film is just inept in so many ways.
Such a waste, as clearly a lot of people put their hearts into this.