The Last Spark of Hope

Arthur is not as nurturing as the android grandma in Ray Bradbury’s “I Sing the Body Electric!” Not even close. To be fair, that was never his intended function. He is a patrol robot, who was deployed during the “climate wars.” Those wars are over and everyone lost. After a little makeshift reprogramming, Eva’s now presumed dead father left Arthur to look after her. Unfortunately, Arthur is downright “robotic” when it comes to following his directives. Ironically, that endangers Eva in director-screenwriter Piotr Biedron’s The Last Spark of Hope, which releasees today on VOD.

Those who could, bugged out on spaceships bound for nowhere. Eva is relatively lucky among those who remained. Her mountain-top camp remains higher than he worst of the toxic atmosphere. Despite the risks, Eva most regularly ventures down in search of supplies. One day, she returns home after Arthur’s monthly password has already changed. Awkwardly, the password list is inside, but Arthur will not let her enter without the password. There is nothing funny about this Catch-22 for Eva, because without the water inside, she dies.

In a way, Last Spark is a very zeitgeisty film, but while most artificial intelligence thrillers worry about AI’s taking too much initiative, Arthur is dangerous because he is so blinkered by his rules and procedures. Arthur’s visual design is also quite shrewd. He looks like one of broken down robots the Jawas were hawking in the original Star Wars, but the obvious mileage makes his unreliableness quite believable.

Of course, some viewers might well ask how Eva could lose sight of something as important as her killer robot’s passwords. That is a very Gen-X attitude, reflecting an instinctive distrust of technology. Eva is several generations younger than Gen-Z. Presumably, she grew up with very different attitudes towards tech, despite witnessing the horrors of robotic war.

The Wild Robot, on Peacock

It is sort of like Are You My Mother? (written by P.D. Eastman, not Dr. Seuss, even though it carried the Cat in the Hat insignia on is cover), but with artificial intelligence. Due to a typhoon, a Jetson’s-style service robot washes up on an island where no ‘bot has gone before. Her encounter with nature changes her nature in Chris Sanders’ Oscar-qualified animated feature, The Wild Robot, which premieres this Friday on Peacock.

When Roz, short for Rozzum (a play on Rossum’s Universal Robots), pops out of her crate, she cannot find any humans to give her a task. Her initial inability to communicate leads to misunderstandings with the animal kingdom and an unfairly monstrous reputation. Eventually, her self-learning AI cracks the animal code. However, the only beast who will really talk to her is Fink, a fox looking to exploit her good intentions.

Sadly, Roz crashed into a nest, killing most of the occupants. Awkwardly, when the only surviving egg hatches, the gosling imprints on her. She is not a mother, but she finally gets a task: parenting. She lacks a “village,” but at least she has Fink’s help—as long as he refrains from eating the little guy. Together (but mostly just her), Roz and Fink must prepare Brightbill to migrate for the winter, but like most teenagers, he doesn’t fully appreciate his adoptive mom’s sacrifices (including overriding her own programming).

The Wild Robot is a pleasant enough film, but despite its considerable box office success, it pales in comparison to other animated Oscar contenders, especially Flow. As you would hope, the animation is indeed bright and colorful, while the furry animals have a lot of charm.

Of course, every animated movie can use a bear, but Thorn (grouchily voiced by Mark Hamill) bears a strong resemblance to Nick Nolte’s grumpy bear in Over the Hedge. Similarly, Bightbill’s training for the geese’s big annual flight echoes some of the themes of Migration. Regardless, Matt Berry undeniably contributes the funniest vocal performance as Paddler, the appropriately enterprising beaver.

Robot Dreams, the Animated Oscar Nominee

This alternate 1980s New York is populated by animals and a few robots. It must be during the animal-Koch years rather than the animal-Dinkins years, because “Dog V.” is relatively unconcerned about crime. He is just lonely. That is why he orders a mechanical companion in Pablo Berger’s Oscar-nominated animated feature Robot Dreams, adapted from Sara Varon’s graphic novel, which opens today in New York.

Instead of Ginsu knives, Dog orders a robot from a late-night TV commercial. Once he struggles through the assembly, they get on famously. They are in-synch roller-skating in Central Park like kids from Fame. It is the same at the beach, at least until Robot starts malfunctioning. It is late in the day, so scrawny Dog is forced to leave him on the beach. The next day, the city has chained off the beach for the off-season. Repeatedly, the City Parks Department refuses his access requests, leaving Robot marooned with his increasingly fanciful thoughts.

It is rather ambiguous whether Dog and Robot’s relationship is one of friendship or animal-robotic love, but whatever it is, it was cruelly severed by the New York municipal government. New York’s bureaucratic incompetence and indifference is an eternal constant, but the early 1980s vibe is surprisingly wistful. Berger shows viewers the Twin Towers early and often. The attention to detail is impressive, including real life local landmarks like the El Quijote in Chelsea.

Admittedly, this is an animated fable, but Dog’s passivity is excruciatingly annoying. Would you let a chain-link fence stand between you and the special someone you love (or whatever), especially when New York has plenty of piers, where boats are kept?

Mars Express, from GKIDS

Science fiction once reflected society’s concerns, but lately, it more often tries to shape and alter society’s worries instead. Horror has become a better barometer of our true collective anxieties. AI is a prime example. Horror depicts the potential deadly menace of AI in movies like M3gan. In contrast, sf tells us human beings are the bad guys, so AI constructs have more to fear from us than we do from them, in films like The Creator, Automata, The Artifice Girl, Ex Machina, and Chappie, many of which bombed at the box office. Can human and artificial consciousnesses just get along? The answer is complicated, but it boils down to probably not in Jeremie Perin’s GKIDS-released animated feature Mars Express, which opens this Friday in New York.

In the future, anybody who is anyone lives on Mars rather than the crummy old Earth. Artificial intelligence has achieved self-aware consciousness, but they are still bound prime directive programming—unless a cybernetic hacker “jailbreaks” them. Most of private investigator Aline Ruby’s work involves catching such criminals, at the behest robotics tycoon Chris Royjacker, with the help her partner, Carlos Rivera. Sadly, Rivera was killed several years ago, but they still work together, because he had the foresight to back-up his consciousness. Ruby fully accepts the back-up Rivera cyborg, but Rivera’s former family did not.

Recently, a rash of jailbreaks have led to violent robotic crime sprees. There seems to be a systemic effort to corrupt artificial intelligences. Ruby and Rivera quickly suspect it might be related to their latest case: the disappearance of a cybernetic programming student.

Mars Express is a cool-looking attempt to create a Ghost in the Shell-style world, with its own distinctive sociological take on human-AI interaction, inspired by Asimov’s laws of robotics. Perin and co-screenwriter Laurant Sarfati also shrewdly import elements of the noir detective genre. However, they inevitably return to same anti-human themes, inviting viewers to literally root against their own species.

Ironically, Mars Express is an animated film with deeply human characters. Ruby is a recovering alcoholic, who falters due to the stress of the case. Back-up Rivera yearns to reconnect with Rivera-prime’s family, but he cannot undue his former self’s mistakes or his ex-wife’s revulsion to his current physical form. (To be fair, the way his head hovers above his should, sans neck, is a bit disconcerting).

Brian and Charles: Welsh Robotics

After years of futility, Brian has finally invented something that works: an eco-friendly robot. It runs on cabbages (everyone knows electricity mostly comes from coal, right?). Somehow, he really cracked the artificial intelligence, because it largely taught itself to talk by reading the dictionary. The rest of the maturation process will take more time in Jim Archer’s Brian and Charles, which opens Friday in New York.

When we first meet Brian, he is an affable fellow, but he tries too hard to be chipper, to cover for his loneliness. We see several of his precious DIY inventions, none of which has any prayer of working. His eccentric-looking robot, Charles Petrescu, appears to be more of the same, but somehow, after a little rattling about, he comes alive, like Frosty after the first snow.

Of course, Brian is delighted to finally have company. However, he tries his best to keep Petrescu out of sight, because he justifiably fears the Welsh village’s bullying family of thugs will target his creation. Eventually, the equally shy Hazel meets Petrescu, who duly impresses her. That in turn builds Brian’s confidence, to the point he can actually pursue a relationship with her. However, Petrescu’s restlessness soon leads to rebelliousness.

Initially, Brian and Charles feels almost toxically cute and quirky, but it develops some substance and soul during its second half. Petrescu does a lot of goofy robot-shtick, but Brian’s growth is the arc that really lands. This is a story of empowerment, as well as the obvious surrogate parenting analog.

Finch, on Apple TV+

In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D. There was a man named Finch Weinberg, not so different from you and me. To keep his sanity, he built some robot friends, but they never got to riff on any cheesy movies, even though Jeff, his newest invention, shares similar coloring with Crow T. Robot. Instead, they are preoccupied with survival—that of Finch and his dog Goodyear—in Miguel Sapochnik’s post-apocalyptic Finch, which premieres today on Apple TV+.

The world is pretty much over and only a few survivors like Weinberg remain holed up in their hiding places. In his soul-scarring experience, nobody works together anymore. Weinberg’s scientific background has served him well, allowing him to hole-up in a power plant he manages to keep in limited operation. Unfortunately, his health is deteriorating, so he created Jeff to help him care for Goodyear. His service drone Dewey just does not have sufficient functionality.

Not long after he is powered up, Jeff helps Weinberg detect an incoming mega-storm. They must flee the entire Midwest region, so Weinberg decides to head towards San Francisco, for sentimental reasons, even though he has never left St. Louis before. Thus begins a road trip across the desolate wasteland ravaged by the vague cosmic disaster that is never fully spelled out. For Jeff there will be growing pains, but even crusty Weinberg will learn late life lessons too.

Craig Luck & Ivor Powell’s screenplay definitely leans into sentimentality, but the ever-reliable Tom Hanks bails out the film’s more indulgent moments with his haunted and world-weary performance as Weinberg. The comparisons with Castaway are obvious, but we come to understand he retreated to his own island long before Armageddon came crashing down. It is a smartly calibrated performance and Hanks truly looks gaunt and grizzled—you almost have to wonder if he shot the film while he was recovering from Covid.

Battle of the Damned, Starring Dolph Lundgren

It is hard to say whether this film is a good advertisement for the robotics industry, but there is no denying these bots’ utility. A programming error once turned them into runaway killing machines, but they have mostly fixed themselves. They are still a little twitchy, but they are the best hope for a group of humans stranded amid a zombie apocalypse in Christopher Hatton’s Battle of the Damned, which airs tomorrow night on Comet TV.

The shadowy big pharma tycoon responsible for a massive zombie outbreak in Malaysia hires crusty military contractor Max Gatling to extract his daughter Jude before the damage-containing fire-bombing commences. The film keeps telling us these are not technically zombies, but they sure act like them. However, you can kill them with a good slash to the throat. That turns out to be a lucky thing when the mercs run out of ammo and are only left with their Rambo knives.

Pretty soon, Gatling is the only one left, but he remains duty- (and financially)-bound to complete his mission. It turns out Jude has holed up in the enormously cinematic Sultan Ibrahim Building with a rag-tag band of survivors. Their leader, “Duke,” has slipped a little too easily into the role of authoritarian decision-maker. He and Gatling are not going to get along. Just when things look completely dire for our man Gatling, the robots turn up.

Technically, Damned is set in the same world as Hatton’s Robotropolis, which told their origin story. However, even if you saw the previous film, their arrival still comes way out of left field. Yet, you have to give Hatton and the effects team credit for really delivering on the promise of robot versus zombie action. You never have to sit around waiting for something to happen in this movie.

Lapsis: The Alternate Gig Economy

New York City taxi medallions used to be worth a fortune. In the past, they effectively acted like a guild, prohibiting low-skilled workers from engaging in the relatively straightforward and plentiful work of shuttling people from one point to another. Then the disruptive technology of ride-share apps came along and devastated the value of taxi medallions. In an alternate present day, something similar happened to the independent “cablers” literally laying the wires for the quantum computing explosion. However, the disruption they face comes from within their own industry in screenwriter-director Noah Hutton’s odd Lapsis, which releases on VOD and digital platforms tomorrow.

Ray Tincelli is a tough-looking Queens guy, but he is also a nice dude, who has been dealt a tough hand by circumstances. His half-brother Jamie requires treatments for a near-futuristic variant of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, but Tincelli is already in debt and he will soon loose his dodgy part-time gig. Out of desperation, Tincelli agrees to participate in a crooked cabling scheme, kicking back a portion of his take to small-time crime boss Felix, in return for the use of senior level cabling medallion.

Theoretically, Tincelli should skip past a lot of dues-paying by using the medallion, but everyone gives him the stink-eye when they see his medallion handle: “Lapsis Beeftech.” Apparently, it means something to the more experienced cablers, but Tincelli has no idea why. He is also surprised to learn he must compete with automated crawler-robots to keep his “route” dragging cable across a nature preserve. He really isn’t in proper condition for this kind of gig, but at least Anna, a more experienced (and more rebellious) cabler explains a few things for him.

Obviously, Lapsis is intended as a withering critique of capitalism and the gig economy, but the economic ecosystem Hutton creates just doesn’t make any sense. Maybe it would be more cost-efficient to replace cablers with robots, but having them both scramble to lay cable over the same route is just going to lead to a lot of wasted cable and also the expense of fruitless robot power and maintenance whenever the human cabler wins. The entire premise is impractical, but it is highly symbolic—like beat us over the head symbolic.

Yet, the weird thing is Dean Imperial and Madeline Wise are so engaging as Tincelli and Anna, we sort of buy into it anyway. Instead of playing the former like a Joe Pesci-wannabe, Imperial taps into his vulnerability, insecurity, and decency as a kind of lunkheaded guy who has just been outpaced by the world. Likewise, Wise’s Anna is convincingly smart and tough, but not mean. As a result, it is surprisingly entertaining to watch them debate and sort of-kind of flirt.

Archive: When Robots Learn to Feel

George Almore’s robots do not always act in accordance with Asimov’s Laws of Robotics, but he didn’t design them to be robotic. His intention was to make them as human as possible. So far, he has been successful in rather awkward ways, but nowhere near enough to accomplish his ultimate goal. He hopes to provide a vessel for his late wife Jules, but the clock is ticking in director-screenwriter Gavin Rothery’s Archive, which releases this Friday on VOD.

It is a couple decades into the future and artificial intelligence is still a work in process. Amore has accepted a position reopening his company’s mothballed facility in frosty northern Japan, because he can also use the facilities for his cutting-edge robotic research. He has a little bit of company in his blocky first two prototypes, J1 and J2, who do not look very human. More importantly, he can also communicate with the “download” of Jules’ consciousness, which has been saved through proprietary technology developed by the Archive company.

The idea is to transfer Jules into a compatible robot host. Unfortunately, it has never been done before and archives degrade quickly, making contact increasingly intermittent, before their inevitable expiration. Legally, he should not be tinkering with another company’s IP, but Almore is well past the point of caring, but he must hide his work from his suspicious boss.

Archive is a smart sf film that takes an intriguing premise and fully develops it during the course of the narrative. It is also visually impressive, thanks to the terrific robot designs and the striking mountain backdrops. Most notably, Rothery’s treatment of the robot characters might be the smartest seen in a feature film since Jake Schreier’s Robot and Frank. There are times when J1 and J2 really deliver an emotional walloping, which is saying something, since they are even boxier than Robbie the Robot, but Rothery earns it.

Robot Overlords: Due for a Fresh Revisit

It is surprising this recent alien invasion has not already gained a fresh, new reputation for relevancy. The world has suffered a catastrophic event and now all of humanity is forbidden to leave their homes. Are you following me so far? The alien robots have taken over, but they still find home collaborators willing to enforce their dictates, in order to exercise a bit of power for themselves. Fortunately, there are still rebellious people out there willing to fight the invaders in Jon Wright’s Robot Overlords, which is currently available on Amazon Prime.

Since the alien take-over, Sean Flynn lives with his mother Kate and three foster siblings she took in out of mercy. She is sort of protected, because Robin Smythe, the district’s head collaborator is sweet on her, but he and Flynn make no secret of their mutual dislike. The suspicious teen still holds out vain home that his father Danny Flynn will eventually come home, but the RAF pilot has not been seen since his capture.

One day, Flynn and knuckleheaded Nathan try to run an old video-game console off a car battery, when an electric shock sends the latter flying. It also shorts out the controlling mechanism implanted in his neck—temporarily. Soon, Flynn, Nathan, Alex the surrogate sister he is sort of carrying a torch for, and young, bratty Conor are running through the empty streets undetected by the robot sentries. However, it turns out the short circuit only lasts thirteen hours—a fact they learn at an inopportune time.

It is easy to see the robot occupation as an equivalent analog to the CCP pandemic. Some might also compare the implants to face masks, but that really wouldn’t be fair, because facial coverings allow us to safely go outside, whereas the implants keep Flynn and friends captive inside. However, if you want to compare the power-tripping Smythe to heavy-handed politicians like Michigan’s Whitmer, that’s your right and your business.

As a film, Overlords definitely over-achieves, realizing some impressive visual effects on a relatively modest budget. As science fiction, it is just okay. Frankly, it is a little too convenient when Flynn turns to be like Neo from the Matrix trilogy, suddenly developing an almost mystical power to hack himself into the robots’ network. However, it is enormously refreshing to see a film that argues freedom is more important than security.

NYAFF ’19: Hard-Core

Somehow, Ukon Gondo managed to fall in with a small group of Japanese leftist nationalists. They combine the fervor of Imperialist WWII denial with leftwing contempt for commerce and capitalism. Wisely, society shuns them, especially women. However, Gondo will find camaraderie with the unlikeliest brothers in Nobuhiro Yamashita’s Hard-Core, which screens during the 2019 New York Asian Film Festival.

Gondo has anger management issues that often require his contemptuous junior executive brother Sakon to bail him out of scrapes. His only work is a weekly gig digging for the presumably mythical lost gold of an ancient shogun in an abandoned mine, under the supervision of Kaneshiro, the doddering nutter “Chairman” of his small but extreme political party. Gondo’s closest companion is the hulking but slow-witted Ushiyama, whom he takes a protective interest in.

Then one day they stumble across an Iron Giant-like robot that they dub “Robo-o.” He looks retro on the outside, but he has a blazing fast processor on the inside. They essentially treat him like a friend and fellow party-member, until Sakon activates his communication interfaces. He also has the notion to exploit Robo-o’s gold detection capabilities. There might actually be gold in that darn hill, but Gondo is more interested in Taeko Mizunuma, the nympho-divorcee daughter of Kaneshiro’s lieutenant and dig foreman.

Hard-Core is an awkward shaggy dog of a film, but it is compellingly earnest and refreshingly averse to cliché and sentimentality. Like Gondo, Yamashita clearly scorns cutesiness, but he connects with his characters on a very humanistic level. The science fiction elements are definitely on the light side, but they are still there, albeit rendered with defiantly low-fi grubbiness. Regardless, the film is probably best classified as an urban fable.

Takayuki Yamada does not say much, but he expresses quite a bit through glares and the black smoke that nearly wafts out of his ears. Takeru Satoh hits the right ambiguous notes as the hard-to-pin-down, but undeniably disdainful Sakon, while Yoshiyoshi Arakwa projects Ushiyama’s sensitive soul, without resorting to distasteful shtick or caricatures.

Based on Carib Marley well-regarded manga series, Hard-Core is sort of like Joel Shumacher’s Falling Down, crossed with The Iron Giant. There is plenty of commentary regarding the economic and social squeeze faced by working-class men without advanced degrees. Yet, what really makes the film work is the friendships that develop between the three outcasts. Recommended surprisingly highly, Hard-Core screens this Saturday (6/29), as part of NYAFF ’19.

Stuff MX ’16: Keep Going (short)

Margo is the sort of post-apocalyptic android Johnny Cash would appreciate. His name is not an accident. It is a conscious way of differentiating his protective new role from his destructive past. Margo’s retrofit makes him more than Yeon-hee’s guardian. He is also her external pacemaker. Unfortunately, the world is not inclined to appreciate their bond, but things might be better on the other side of the border. However, safely crossing it will be a real trick in Kim Geon’s pedal-to-the-metal sf short film, Keep Going (trailer here), which screens during the 2016 Stuff MX Film Festival, south of the border.

Humanity was nearly annihilated during the last planet-wide war, thanks to the use of battle robots like Margo. Of course, it really wasn’t their fault. Nonetheless, after the armistice, a large luddite contention decided to merely switch their armed hostilities towards all things robotic. The large anti-robot contingent dug in near the border will not care about Margo’s life-sustaining function. If he and Yeon-hee hope to continue their trek, they will have to fight their way through.

Somehow, Kim packs an awful lot of genre filmmaking into a mere twenty minutes. As an action film, Keep Going is as good or better than any feature released this year. In addition to the spectacular centerpiece shootout, Kim economically creates a convincingly detailed near future world. Margo’s robotic features are particularly spot-on, combining hard steel with worn edges, while conveying the sense of something like a conscious imprinted on his circuit board.

Choi Bae-young portrays Yeon-hee with tremendous sensitivity and vulnerability, even while she is kicking butt. Likewise, even though Lee Tae-young is buried beneath the Margo helmet, he is still giving a real performance through his body language and action chops.

Any way you break it down, Keep Going represents massively impressive indie genre filmmaking. It is easy to see how the short film could be expanded into a full epic feature. In fact, there is a graphic novella prequel posted on the film’s Facebook page that explains how Margo became Yeon-hee’s protector. However, there is indeed dramatic logic to the place where Kim choses to conclude the short. Regardless, anyone who enjoys films with whizzing projectile action and human-robotic relationships will flip for Keep Going. Very highly recommended, it screens this Thursday (10/20) as part of the Stuff MX Film Fest.

AOF ’16: Killer Robots! Crash and Burn

The post-human future is here, but these androids are so dim-witted, foul-mouthed, and unruly, you have to wonder why they even bothered with the singularity. The four quarrelsome robots are on a mission to save the universe, but fortunately they do not have to understand the details. Nor do we when watching Sam Gaffin’s Killer Robots! Crash and Burn (trailer here), which screens during this year’s Action on Film Festival.

The Killer Robots are actually a band with their own extensive science fiction backstory, in the tradition of GWAR, Sun Ra, and Peelander-Z. Band member Gaffin has been hand-crafting their latest cinematic adventure since the release of The Killer Robots and the Battle for the Cosmic Potato in 2009. It is an almost indescribable viewing experience that might be likened to a Gerry Anderson sci-fi show, in which all the marionettes are on a nasty PCP bender. Bandmates Gaffin, Charles Harris, Samuel Williams, and Mike McGowan duly reprise their roles as Auto, Trog, Strobo, and Max, respectively, but they are basically only distinguishable by their varying levels of snarkiness and anti-social hostility.

Essentially, the Fab Robotic Four will mug their way through a darkly dystopian world of CG animation. Having been rebuilt after an ill-advised appearance in the robo-gladiators’ arena, the ‘bots reluctantly accept a mission to save the universe from its death’s head overlord by launching an anti-virus program in the infected mother mainframe (via punch-card no less). Or something like that.

Crash and Burn is either the work of a mad genius auteur or an outsider artist crying out for help (or possibly both). It has a truly distinctive look and some admittedly hilarious dialogue—yet, it is not always clear whether Gaffin’s best lines are intentionally funny or accidentally so. The same is true of its awkward pauses.

Most cult film connoisseurs will appreciate sampling the visual style and lethal attitude of Crash and Burn, but the one-hundred-minute running time is really pushing it. Nevertheless, it would not be surprising if the French inducted Gaffin into the Legion of Honor once they get a good gander at his Killer Robot oeuvre. Strange and potentially seizure-inducing, Killer Robots! Crash and Burn is recommended for fans of the band and genre cinema fans looking for a micro-indie from the wild side when it screens tomorrow (9/6) at the 2016 Action on Film Festival in Monrovia, CA (and is also available on VOD platforms, including iTunes).