Automata

There are lots of films about post-apocalyptic worlds featuring robots and other fancy technology. Despite some obvious similarities to Blade Runner and I, Robot there is still enough in Automata to make it worth a watch.

Let's get the similarities out of the way first. There is a lot of moping around in a miserable, dirty, rainy city near the start. This is just a lazy copy of Blade Runner. I didn't even understand why it was raining at all since the city was in the middle of a desert.

And from I, Robot we get a set of rules which are supposed to keep the machines absolutely subservient to non-machines.

Right. I think that's where most reviews end. It's easy to write Automata off as just derivative.

But I think there's more to it.

I liked the idea that people tried to design themselves out of a natural disaster... And failed. We always assume that there's a technical fix for everything. And maybe sometimes there isn't.

It was also clever that the surviving humans turned their hatred onto the agents of their failed intervention, the robots, rather than on themselves. Classic shooting the messenger.

Also maybe prescient that humans made themselves redundant.

SPOILERS

OK. All that is spilled in the first few minutes. So it was nice to discover later that humans didn't actually even design the robots. They made a single AI that designed the robots for them. And which they then turned off because it was smarter than they liked.

At this point I was thinking that maybe it was smart enough to make robots that could evolve past the rules... Which of course is what happened.

The good old law of unintended consequences wins again.

So. The film is a bit lazy, borrows a lot from classic sci-fi and doesn't really surprise much at the end.

But, if you are going to borrow, borrow from the best. And not every thriller has to have an unexpected ending.

Yes, it could have been better. But I still think Automata is a good film, with some interesting ideas and a cautionary message.

Enjoyed it.