Watch The Machine For Free

Instant Favorite.

If you don't like this, we can't be friends.

Boring

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

I stumbled over this movie when casually browsing the Netflix catalog yesterday. The plot is fairly unoriginal one but it is one I would probably have liked it, if it would have been well implemented. Sadly it was not. It was not even a half arsed implementation. I am at loss to understand how this disappointing movie can hold a rating at 6.1 at IMDb at the time of me writing this.The movie is quite a low budget one. I can live with that. It is also quite dark. I can live with that as well. Unfortunately I found it to be a slow, boring, illogical and stupid mess. Of course it portrays the MoD as the stupid, arrogant and lying bad guys. No surprise there when it comes to most movie-making today. Been there, seen that. Wasn't fun the first time.The implementation of the plot is also just poor with lots of stupidity and plot holes. These potentially dangerous people seem to some times be locked up in cages and sometimes be roaming around pretty freely. The lost speech part is also laughable. The idea that a RD center should not discover that the subjects communicated between themselves is just stupid.As for the acting it is mediocre at best. Not really bad perhaps but certainly not very good either. It is really a low budget B-movie so this could perhaps have been swallowed but there is really not a single likable character in the entire movie. Almost everyone is an arse one way or another and the cyborg, who could have been interesting, is just… meh.The majority of the movie is one long, slow and dark ordeal. Once we finally get some action it is pure B-movie style shoot a lot and f- ck logic kind of action. The ending? The less said about it the better.For me this one was a waste of time.

The Machine is a rather successful attempt at implementing hard science fiction tendencies with a cyberpunk aesthetic. It may not be particularly adroit in terms of human and AI relationships, but I appreciate the rigor of the scientific explanation for the artificial intelligence. The film really excels at this in the beginning when Vincent conducts his own Turing tests as part of a secret headhunting operation. Then as he meets Ava things start taking a problematic turn. The military-industrial complex is invoked, but its purpose is sort of shadowy and never is contextualized in a way that would make the narrative more coherent.The questioning of human identity is the strongest point of the film, but I suppose that, at the very core, this film was more interested in being a thriller, rather than an exploration of the philosophical concepts.

There aren't really too many successful films about artificial intelligence out there, so additions to the genre are always welcome for this reviewer. Sadly, THE MACHINE doesn't really do much in terms of film-making that hasn't been done previously, although it is a film that raises more than a few moral and philosophical questions over the course of its running time.This low budget feature stars the reliable Toby Stephens as a researcher looking into AI and its uses in a modern-day cold war with China. Various complexities and dilemmas arise, but none of them seem to have a huge dramatic effect on the viewer; most of the action takes place in a murky and empty laboratory and the cinematography is below par. Attempts to shoehorn some fight scenes into the narrative don't work very well, and the climax is as predictable as they come. For the most part, THE MACHINE relies on the talents of Stephens and Stephens alone to make an emotional impact, but only he can do so much.

It's not necessarily The Machine's fault, seeing as it came out in 2013, but seeing a story like this following last year's Ex Machina is a bit like coming upon a quarter pounder from McDonald's after getting a gourmet 1-pounder from that diner you always think is unattainable but finally comes to you (not to say it's a leap above something like Chappie, which this also reminded me of). The Machine is an artificial intelligence thriller that posits the problems that comes when someone's consciousness becomes loaded into a machine (the woman in question is played by Caity Lotz, who you may remember from being excellent on Arrow as the Black Canary), and despite the hopes from one guy (Toby Stephens) to make her feel and recognize things, there is the other guy (Denis Lawson) who wants her as a killing machine in battle scenarios.If this sounds familiar, well, it is. It's certainly directed with flair and the director of photography Nicolai Bruel sets up with the director a slick but not too bright look that makes things natural looking and interesting... except when the lens flare gets to be too much, which for me was much too much (special guest director JJ Abrams?) Lotz, as mentioned, does a splendid job of at first giving us a human character to latch on to, and then when she becomes an AI she pulls off this role with aplomb (if that's the word for it) and is constantly interesting to watch, whether doing the robot-voice thing or being in silhouette and naked doing physical movements. On the front of giving us an interesting main subject it's fine.Where it's familiar is just in everything to do with the story and elements of characters we know; everything with Lawson is seen as predictable from the moment he comes on screen, as is the climax. If there was some surprise or mis-direction even it could have gained some narrative or dramatic heft, but alas the filmmaker doesn't go for it. For the kind of method you may watch it, as I did on Netflix, it makes for a decent watch, just nothing that breaks any new ground or surprises in the way of furthering stories of this kind.