Automata (2014, Dir. Gabe Ibáñez):
You can probably count the number of great films about robots on one hand (I got Wall-E, Metropolis, Blade Runner, and The Terminator — feel free to add your own), so I was pre-disposed to give Automata a shot at landing on the list. Set in 2044, we find ourselves on a near-uninhabitable Earth, with the dwindling population crammed into an urban dystopia. The droids that service the remnants of mankind are governed by two protocols similar to Isaac Asimov’s laws of robotics: Do not harm another living being, and do not alter yourself or other robots in any way. When hothead cop Wallace (Dylan McDermott) happens upon a robot operating on itself, a clear violation of the second protocol, he promptly blows the offending machine away, leaving it up to robot insurance investigator Jacq Vaucan (Antonio Banderas) to literally pick up the pieces and discover who is behind the violation, which could have ramifications for the rest of the robots and the human race.
For a small-budget production, Automata looks impressive. Director Gabe Ibáñez knows how to create an atmosphere with a minimum of fuss: the cityscapes are indebted to Blade Runner (the billboard-size geishas in that film are three-dimensional, holographic vixens in this one), the desert wastelands outside the city are convincingly parched, and the shiny, stilt-like robots (mostly practical effects, with puppetry CGI-ed out) are both sensible and uncanny. For a while we’re allowed to soak in the mood and enjoy the comic grace notes, like a robot companion begging for change for his homeless human owner, or the use of Javier Bardem and Melanie Griffith as the voices of two rebellious robots. By the time Jacq is hijacked by these droids and dragged out into the middle of the radioactive desert where all the answers to his questions lie, you might expect the ante to be upped on suspense, revelation, or metaphysical conundrums — but the movie’s cumulative glumness takes its toll, and it can’t rouse itself from the doldrums for the finale. Where Asimov took delight in exploring the ins and outs of his universes, and digging into the implications of how artificial intelligence is defined and controlled, Automata can only string together clichés from better films: innocent man on the run, malfunctioning robots, evil corporations, family in peril, the promise of a life away from the regimented grubbiness of the city slum.
The script is both vague and over-emphatic, as if it’s been translated into English from another language (given Ibáñez’s background, this may very well be true), and settles for half-baked conclusions. Banderas is one of the producers, and there’s enough glimmers of potential in the story to make you understand why he was interested in the property, but while he’s credible as the hangdog hero, the role fails to make much use of his quicksilver qualities. McDermott, all snarls and growls, and Robert Forster, as Jacq’s by-the-book boss, don’t even have characters to play. Melanie Griffith doesn’t either, but when she turns up as a sassy robot scientist, her face rubbery and stretched out by plastic surgery, she becomes the movie’s most uncanny creation, and maybe its most poignant statement about the fine line between artificiality and organic life.
