Year of Release: 2023
Director: Casper Christensen, Anthony Hines
Starring: Shailene Woodley, Jack Whitehall, Paul Rust, Nicholas Rutherford, Paul Jurewicz, David Grant Wright, Emanuela Postacchini, Chelsea Edmundson, Samantha Ashley, Richard Lippert
Score out of ten (whole numbers only): 3
Watch it on Netflix
Synopsis and Review
"Robots" is the feature directorial debut for Casper Christensen and Anthony Hines. They have quite an extensive career in film writing, with Mr. Hines in particular having had an ongoing partnership with actor/writer/producer Sacha Baron Cohen (he has co-written "Borat" and its sequel, as well as "Bruno"). "Robots" takes place in the near future, and follows the story of Charles Cameron, the spoiled and self entitled son of real estate mogul/financier Ted Cameron, who has figured out a way of doing almost nothing with his life: he has spent a small fortune to have someone build a robot replica of himself (which is not permitted), who goes to work, cooks, cleans, and even jumpstarts romantic entanglements with women, with his only chore being to bed them once they're ready to move to the next step. Charles' replica, named C2, meets a beautiful woman at an ice skating ring. That relationship evolves pretty quickly, but as they're ready to consummate the relationship, Charles gives C2 the wrong address. He ends up going to a business meeting, where C2 goes to meet Elaine, the woman he's been dating, and that he is supposed to have sex with. As it turns out, Elaine is also enjoying a similar swindle to Charles: she also has a similar robot to herself, which she uses for menial jobs, but also to have sex with the men she dates and gets money from. The replicas spend the night together, fall in love, and decide to evade their situations. The following morning Charles and Elaine realize what has happened, and they resort to Zach, the engineer who created the replicas, to locate and terminate them, before authorities realize what has happened.
The premise for this film is an interesting one, since it bypasses all the heart and intelligence Steven Spielberg and Stanley Kubrick depicted in "AI", and instead goes for a quasi romantic comedy of sorts, where robots eventually become sentient, evade to Mexico so they can be free, whereas humans are egotistical, selfish, and immature individuals. In other hands, this film could be a potent satire, addressing issues like personal freedoms, emotional shallowness, political unrest, and the list goes on. The creative team chooses to go with a rather emotionally stunted version of "Overboard", where the rich and spoiled Charles gets a lesson of how the other side lives, from a slightly less selfish and emotional unavailable person embodied by Elaine. These are both ethnically questionable individuals, who get a sort of awakening during the film, while going through situations that are meant to be humorous (they're not for the most part), and as it turns out, in the end everyone gets a happy ending. It's a bland storyline, with a modest budget, which the final rendered output comes across as even cheaper than what the team must have had to begin with. One questions how Curry Barker was able to make "Obsession" with so little money and make it look so polished, whereas this film had a budget of 21 million dollars, and literally looks like it was made for 50K. The sole positive nod for this film is the shining and winning presence of Shailene Woodley, a very talented performer, who brings a nuanced perspective to her portrayal of Elaine: she's a grifter, but she's not completely without principles. Jack Whitehall can't quite keep up with her, and the rest of the cast doesn't have much to work with. The production team is forgettable, which sadly is the same that can be said for this film. Skip it.
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