Although all of my images appear in the trailer as does almost all of my descriptions of what happens in the story, there is still a chance that some of what follows here could be considered SPOILERS. So be warned.
my tl;dr is that this film is decent but has laughably bad plot devices and situations that kind of ruin the overall theme.
On we go...
I saw a very well-made trailer about this movie about a week ago and then soon after requested that it be added to my library. I sat down last night and settled in for what I had hoped would be good viewing since the ratings for this thing online are around a 7, which is normally a good sign.
Unfortunately the story has a lot of contrivances and conveniences as well as bullshit plot-armor that takes away from the whole thing being actually good.
src
it's been described as sugar-coated Sci-Fi by many outlets and I suppose that is a good way of describing it in just a few words. This movie plays out like a poorly-written and too long Black Mirror episode in that it is referencing something that people are actually working on right now, but with some technological advancements that make it purely fiction.
"Iris" (played wonderfully by Sophie Thatcher) is a pretty and kind girl in her 20's who at first regales us with how she found the love of her life that completed her and how wonderfully that is going. Iris is a sweet girl who is a bit socially awkward and is now going to a weekend getaway with her boyfriend in the middle of nowhere at a "remote cabin."
I have to laugh a little bit anytime a remote cabin is introduced into a story because there is just so much convenience in such a locale that allows many different, yet ubiquitous aspects of horror/thriller films to come forth with out needing any rhyme or reason as to how it is possible.
Why didn't you run for help? you can't! It's a remote cabin!
Why didn't you call someone? you can't! Remote cabins have iffy mobile coverage
Why didn't anyone notice the noise and screams? They can't! The remote cabin is too far away from civilization
You get the idea right?
src
At the cabin things seem to be going great although the partying that the group is doing is something straight out of a high-school drama in its stupidity and the dialogue isn't much better. However, after this first rather good night things go off the rails on day two as Iris suddenly finds herself in a situation where she has to defend herself and well, wins.
She is not the murdering type but it is at this point that we find out (if someone were to never watch a trailer, where it is clearly pointed out so this is not a spoiler) that Iris is actually a companion droid / sex robot / emotional support cyborg.
Iris' model is such a good piece of equipment that Iris herself is unaware of the fact that she is a robot and is unwilling to accept this even when it is spelled out plainly for her and the controls are shown to her.
src
I was still reasonably engaged at this point but once we enter the "cat and mouse" portion of the 2nd act, things go down the well-trodden path of stupid, happenstance situations that are so overused that they are just cliche in films of this, or any other sort.
The decisions to split up a group, the teleporting of people who are clearly well behind in a scene that happened just seconds ago (this is particularly frustrating when one of the people that hits bullshit-warp-speed fast-travel, is the only obese person in the cast.)
src
this guy hasn't moved quickly towards anything other than a buffet line in 20 years
There's a lot of cool things that happen that kind of have, as I said, a Black Mirror message about the dangers of AI or technology in a general sense, but the flow of the film just takes on so many completely impossible angles that if you are at all interested in at least SOMEWHAT of a level of realism in films, will piss you off pretty rapidly.
A few of the things that got under my skin
- Everyone knows how to use firearms pretty well despite being rather posh individuals that wouldn't know this generally speaking
- The aforementioned fast-travel happens to every single member of the cast at one point or another
- Police are morons who don't call anything in before investigating and once they go missing, central command doesn't follow up at all
- Iris has super strength that you would expect of a robot at times and then sometimes in the very next scene, she is easily overpowered by an average sized human
- There are no consequences for anyone involved in murder
I think that this is not spoiler-ey because I think you can kind of foresee all of these plot points simply by watching the trailer.
To me, this is a wonderful concept that in different, more talented hands could have been a great concept for an overall plot that hopefully someone out there will do a better job of in the future. This film, despite the high marks on review sites that I suspect are rigged by the film-makers themselves, is pretty close to what I would consider to be "trash."
There are some good practical and special effects but the entire situation is completely implausible in so many ways and the dialogue sounds like it was written by teenagers who were told to make it as camp and trivially-stupid as possible.
This is another one of those films that they did a much better job on the trailer than they did on the actual film. No harm in that I guess because that is what everyone does and always has done.
I'm on the fence about telling people to avoid it though and for a mix of reasons. For one thing, I think the premise is a good one and at least to some degree looks like the direction that technology is likely at least investigating from what I see in memes and news stories. The acting is pretty solid, I can't blame any of the actual actors, they were just doing the best they could with an absolutely awful set of lines that they could.
There are reason to see this, and for me a lot of those reasons are to see the incredibly lazy writing that makes the entire story really hard to get behind because it is just riddled with impossibilities, idiotic choice that nobody would make, and convenient situations combined with completely ignoring the laws of physics in order to progress the plot not because from A to B is possible, but because it needs to happen.
Certain sections of it made me miss the usual "girl tripping over something while being chased in the woods" of the 80's. The methods they use in this film are far more ridiculous than that.
I think one of the major reasons why you should watch this film is because of how terrible parts of it are and how the writers and directors must have just thrown up their arms at one point and just said "I GUESS! just do it!" On the other hand though, this is not a great film and people who will watch only great films would probably consider this a waste of time.
At the moment, the only legal method of watching this film is via an Amazon Prime or AppleTV+ subscription. It can be rented or purchased on all the other major ones as well. It is not on Netflix