Review of Automata (2014) by Filius S — 13 Dec 2015

See the movie that everyone is tripping over themselves to hate, even though it's actually pretty decent, because something something Asimov's I, Robot with Jayden Smith Sr. is a better actor. Automata is the story of desperado who has settled into a comfortable life as a robot technicator in the robot future. The city is in the desert, and robots aren't allowed to repair themselves, until some humans find a couple that are. That's bad news because the companies in charge of robots can't just lose money or something, so they try to bury the story. But Zorro is like "what?" and hunts for the truth, eventually meeting some bots who are going to make their own city without blackjack or hookers. The movie is pretty good at showing you how stupid people are, and how robots are better, but also does a pretty good job of setting up a cyber-punk-stopian setting, and touches on a lot of the dumb shit that happens with technology today. It's not philosophically mind-blowing like other robot movies like Tranformers: Rise of the Advertisement, but as a film, it's definitely got quite a bit going for it.

TL;DR - 8/10.

Pretty sweet robot movie, but if you don't like future stuff and Zorro (which I do) it's actually 7/10. If you're into robot movies that tell you what brand of shoes to wear, this movie will be 1/10 Converses, and you will want to watch I, Robot instead.