Subservience: an AI Scorned

This futuristic family is sort of like the Brady Bunch. They also have a housekeeper named Alice, but as a lifelike AI-driven android, she has vastly different packaging and programming. Their Alice looks older than M3gan, but she has the same bad habits in S.K. Dale’s Subservience, which releases tomorrow on EST in the UK and on VOD in America.

Sadly, Nick’s hospitalized wife Maggie desperately needs a transplant, because she is fading fast. He could also use a hand with their elementary school aged daughter Isla and nine- or ten-month-old son. Apparently, even a construction foreman can afford a SIM servant in the future, but rather unwisely, he buys one that looks like Megan Fox rather than Mrs. Doubtfire. Nevertheless, she seems to handle Isla well.

Soon, Alice also offers Nick her full services. He tries to resist, but her ability to mimic Maggie’s voice breaks down his resistance. Unfortunately, her programming is a little wonky, which allows Allice to take questionable initiatives. As her prime user, Alice is hard-wired to protect Nick, but she starts interpreting his best interests for him.

Obviously, Subservience follows relatively closely on the heels of M3gan, but it manages to develop some original themes. To a considerable degree, the chaos that erupts is partially Maggie’s fault, when she instructs Alice to hide Nick’s liquor, even though he will not like it, because sometimes we know better than other people what is best for them. As always, that is a very dangerous proposition. Sure enough, like so many horrific socialist regimes, Alice uses her judgment of what Nick needs to justify murder.

Johnny & Clyde: Serial Killers, Demons, and a Sitting Congressman

Please do not accidentally call them “Bonnie & Clyde,” because they aren’t worthy of the comparison, not to the real-life outlaws, the musical, or any of the films depicting them, except maybe Bonnie & Clyde vs. Dracula. In this case, Johnny and his lover are taking on a demonically protected crime syndicate, when they aren’t killing innocent victims. Like the Bonnie & Clyde mash-up, the resulting mayhem is not as fun as it sounds. In fact, the violence and nihilism are a bit much in Tom DeNucci’s Johnny & Clyde, which releases this Friday.

Former Sheriff Randall Lock is determined to catch and kill Johnny & Clyde now that they are back in Rhode Island. The serial killer couple tortured Lock’s daughter to death, but perversely, the film expects viewers to root for them instead of him. Sadly, those expectations are probably based on the fact he is old, fat, and pasty white, whereas they are young and fit. However, the title twosome are actually the most loathsome characters in this unpleasant film.

Even Alana Hart is more endearing than Johnny & Clyde. Hart is managing her gangster father’s local gambling interests, with the supernational assistance of his ancient satanic cult. She is definitely the boss, but she dresses like Larry Flint’s administrative assistant. When Johnny and Clyde hijack one of Hart’s cash shipment, the surviving guard tries to exchange information regarding the syndicate’s secret vaults for his life. Hart knows Johnny & Clyde and their freaky friends are coming, so she arranges to have a demon named Bakwas waiting for them.

As Johnny & Clyde, Avan Jogia and Ajani Russell so completely lack charisma, viewers will only want to see them get the painful payback they so richly deserve. Of course, that rather undermines any sense of rooting interest in anyone on-screen. Sadly, there is no pithy Tarantino dialogue to punch-up this Natural Born Killers supernatural rip-off. Frankly, all the casual cruelty, depicted in such a flat, unremarkable style, make the film a relentlessly grim viewing experience.

Till Death: Megan Fox Gets Divorced the Hard Way

It is like a snowy Weekend at Bernie’s without the 1980’s-style fun. After “celebrating” or at least observing her anniversary, Emma finds herself tethered to a corpse—her husband’s. That will save her the trouble of a divorce, assuming she survives the killers out to get her in S.K. Dale’s Till Death, which opens this Friday in theaters and on VOD.

Emma was grateful to Mark for prosecuting the creep who attacked her. However, after they married, he sold out to corporate law and became an emotionally cruel and controlling husband. There is absolutely nothing fun about their anniversary dinner, until he whisks her away to their upstate farmhouse, to rekindle some of the old magic.

It doesn’t last for long. For reasons that will be spoilery to explain, Emma gets handcuffed to Mark’s dead body. As she drags it around the snowbound house, she finds all the tools, cutlery, and sharp cutting implements have been mysteriously removed. Emma’s clothes were also removed, except for the night gown on her back and her old wedding dress (to send a creepy message). Things are pretty dire, even before her old stalker-nemesis arrives on the scene.

Jason Carvey’s screenplay has its clever points, but it pales in comparison to Mike Flanagan’s adaptation of Gerald’s Game. Granted, Emma finds herself in a tight spot, but she is extraordinarily unresourceful when it comes to detaching herself from her dead-weight hubby. (Presumably, you could just break a bone and then tear through some flesh and cartilage, but we’ve admittedly never been in such a situation.)

Megan Fox is okay as Emma, but the way her makeup stays perfectly in place throughout all her ordeals is truly amazing. Callan Mulvey and Eoin Macken are both pretty creepy as the stalker and the husband. Probably the best performance comes from Jack Roth as Jimmy, the killer’s little brother and reluctant accomplice, while Aml Ameen is stuck playing the dumbest character, the spectacularly unintuitive Tom, Emma’s lover, who of course also happens to be Mark’s protégé.

Battle of Jangsari: Young Courage & Sacrifice

In the Korean War, Jangsari was to Inchon roughly what Calais was to Normandy during WWII. It was a massive decoy away from the Allies’ make-or-break landing point, but in this case, flesh-and-blood Korean soldiers were dispatched to sell the illusion. Even for seasoned troops, it would have largely been a suicide mission, but these were primarily students in their teens with mere weeks of training under their belts. Yet, they fought tenaciously, as viewers can tell from the bloody campaign dramatized in Kwak Kyung-taek’s Battle of Jangsari, which opens this Friday in New York.

American forces are barely holding the line, so Colonel Stevens can ill afford to send reinforcements to assist the Jangsari landing. At least he feels terrible about it, but war is war. On the other hand, his Korean counterpart appears completely unfazed. Col. Stevens will do what he can, in part because of the badgering of an American war correspondent transparently modeled after Marguerite Higgins, but they will mostly be on their own.

There were over 760-some student-soldiers at Jangsari, but we only really get to known four or five, in addition to their deeply conflicted captain. Even though he knows the commander will be set-up to be the scapegoat, Captain Lee Myung-joon volunteers to lead the mission, for the sake of the green troops. Choi Sung-pil, a refugee from the North, and Ki Ha-ryun, an emotionally abused and neglected teen from the South, initially clash violently, but mutual respect will be forged on the beaches and in the trenches. Jovial-looking Guk Man-deuk is definitely not a fighter, but he will do everything he can to protect Moon Jong-nyeo, a young woman passing for her brother, her family’s sole male heir.

You could say war is Hell in Jangsari, but it ends too quickly for so many soldiers. This is one of the grittiest, least romanticized war movies in years, but it still (rightfully and accurately) suggests the Communist North were the aggressors, while the South and their Allies were the good guys. Although it is not as entertaining as the rip-roaring Operation Chromite, it is considerably superior to even more downbeat and morally equivalent The Front Line.