Subservience (2024)

Weak, Daft Robot SciFi - Subservience review by GI

A thoroughly predictable and extremely implausible science fiction film that warns of the dangers of AI. It's another robot narrative that is schlocky and daft and tries to play in the themes that hugely better films have done before such as Blade Runner (1982), Ex Machina (2014) and The Stepford Wives (1975); there's even a Terminator scene thrown in for good measure. This is set in the near future where very human-like robots called SIMS are freely available as workers, servants etc etc. When humble construction manager Nick (Michele Morrone) is faced with looking after his two children as his wife is hospitalised he buys a SIM which he names Alice (Megan Fox). Despite the fact that he can afford what should be a highly expensive piece of kit it also happens to be a very sexually alluring model! Eventually of course he fucks Alice and fails to act when it begins to offer some disturbing behaviour. When Nick's wife comes home Alice proves to be rather dangerous for reasons that are not really followed through in the narrative. There's some huge gaps in this image of the future, indeed apart from robots that are basically indistinguishable from humans (more human than human as a better film once said) there seems to be nothing else much different. There's even a lack of basic CCTV allowing the plot to have a crime that would be easily resolved today let alone in a few years time! In short you can pull holes galore in this and despite some horrific violence it's a film that could have been great but is sadly a throwaway.