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The F**k-It List (2020)
Underappreciated story about society, institutions and technology
This is actually a pretty good movie with some very good acting and some very good messages as well as insight into modern techo-culture.
Many of the hater reviewers on here seem to have missed the point which is the corrupt college system and what parents do to try to optimize their kids' chances of getting into the best schools.....since they are born.
This is the story of a kid who does everything right, not for himself, but basically for his parents, and is unhappy because of it. Then everything goes wrong, but that helps him find himself and in the process he uncovers the dysfunctions within a system that is one of the great rip-offs and delusions of American society. Sure there are some tired tropes dragged out and phony events and relationships to keep fill some space or tidy things up, but at its core, it is a coming of age story about the conflict between society and the individual.
It also is a window onto social media and the power it has in society and the resulting disruption that it causes.
The main characters (Eli Brown, Madison Iseman, Natalie Zea, Jerry O'Connell-to a lesser extent) all do a very good job and are believable in their roles and fun to watch. The rest of the characters are more one dimensional and often are just props used to make a point or include a societal role. But those are minor annoynces to the message about who we are and how our institutions affect us and how technology is changing them.
Love Me (2021)
Definitely worth watching
This is definitely a soap opera but one worth watching. The acting of the main characters was very good and some of the grief and love scenes were intense and very believable. I've seen Hugo Weaving in other things but never really knew who he was but watching this and looking at some of his other work he is a phenomenal top class actor. The relationships, chemistry, emotions and dialogue between Clara (Bojana Novakovic) and Peter (Bob Morley) as well as between Glen (Hugo Weaving) and Anita (Heather Mitchell) were often times excellent and very engaging. All of those things with Aaron, Jesse and Ella were less so. The chemistry and relationships with those characters all seemed a bit off. But all of the romance scenes between any of the characters were sensual, passionate and believable so much so that I think that some of these people must be having personal relationships. Much of the dialogue is very well done and Peter and Anita come across as the most likeable characters. The only real issue I have with the series is that some of the writing of the plot twists (the plot is fine) and ways people react are not believable to the extent that the show veers into being phony and fabricated. Some examples are Jesse's unconditional love of Aaron (come on now), Aaron's Ella tattoo (nope), Glen's immediate need to marry Anita literally within days of being a widow (forced), Ella wanting to keep the child (not likely), Jesse just happening to come up on Peter and Clara having sex in the car (fabricated) and many other scenes are just not realistic. They are entertaining but not believable to the point of making the show less watchable. This undermines the believability of the whole series which is unfortunate because of all the other really good things - excellent acting, intense and realistic scenes, chemistry between the love interests, great dialogue, good premise, etc. If they could get rid of the silly and unbelievable plot twists and hokey low quality novella scenes this show would be excellent.
The Fallout (2021)
Surprisingly good
Wow. This was one of the better movies I've seen in a while. It definitely had a low budget feel to it with the videography and the minimal sets. But that didn't matter because the subject matter was handled adeptly and sensitively with the right amount of drama and dialogue. The acting and writing were phenomenal for such young actors. It was a story not only of gun violence and its aftermath as handled by different characters, but it was also a coming of age story. The way social media, relationships, parenting, drugs, adolescence, trauma, and friendships were portrayed in modern America was spot on. It was touching without being preachy. From beginning to the end it was engaging and the story line never dropped the ball.
Black Bear (2020)
Lame excuse of a film to give Aubrey a chance to showcasing her dramatic acting
Insider circle jerk movie about people working in the film industry to show the behind the scenes look at movie making, highlighting to what extent directors and actors will go to in order to create characters, emotions and scenes. It's broken into two parts with the first being the play and the second about the sausage factory that made the play. Both parts had boring phony dialogue. The first part had cardboard cutout characters with a somewhat believable script. The second part had cardboard cutout script with somewhat believable characters. The little vignettes between the various actors and their support people (makeup, grip, videographer, gaffer, whatever) were like they had been pulled from someone's experiences working in the industry for 10 years and they just threw all the outlandish things that they had come across into the shooting of two scenes. The whole thing was a hokey, college experimental-type play film that leaves the viewer empty and dissatisfied. It was like Aubrey convinced someone to put this hodge-podge script together to showcase her dramatic acting abilities that were more agonizing rather than entertaining to watch. Here's a tip Aubrey: stick to comedy. This movie was a total waste of time.
The Handmaid's Tale (2017)
Unwatchable
I watched this because of all the hype it got and that it seemed to keep popping up in various references where it rose to the level of a cultural phenomenon so I thought I needed to check it out. Oh yeah, and because I liked Elisabeth Moss in Mad Men. I watched 4 episodes of season 1 and can say that it is a total piece of garbage. Gratuitously violent, painfully long drawn out scenes, way too much foreboding music/direction/editing, overly dramatic scenes to the point of kitsch, bad acting, unrealistic dialogue and action, hokey characters and an over-the-top attempt at driving home the usual woke culture messages. It works hard to beat one over the head with "the lesson" and the result is silly, unbelievable caricatures and storyline. Worse, the writing defies common sense, logic and believability at every level. There are many examples of this and the writers seem to disregard all aspects of human nature and how people would talk and behave and just seem pull things out of their....thin air to make their point. Don't get me wrong: the idea of a dystopian future where gender drives class hierarchy has some merit, but that opportunity was lost here and there are no redeeming qualities to this series with regards to that. If it was a movie it would a laughable 50's era lower quality sub-B-grade movie. I regret watching even one episode and pity the fools who sat through 4 seasons of this crap.
Fleabag (2016)
True Adult Entertainment
Phoebe Waller-Bridge deserves all the praise and acclaim that she has gotten for her writing and acting skills in Fleabag. She is a comedic genius for her insight, comedic timing and understanding of the human condition. She is prescient beyond her years. The series is poignant, hilarious and extremely entertaining. The main relationships - sibling, parent, spouse, child, lover, best friend are well written, directed and acted and are done by a person who has keen insight into the triumphs and tragedies of relationships. Even the secondary relationships touch upon serious issues while at the same time are done with wit and wry humor. This short series belongs among the top shows of its kind ever produced and deserves being called great. It is a wonderful examination of love, lust, loss and life and the foibles of being human.
Maid (2021)
Unrealistic scenes and characters
What an unrealistic show. Netflix has been going downhill for a long time and its low quality is exemplified by shows like this and the gratuitously violent The Squid Game as 2 of its top 3 shows currently. The characters, situations and dialogue in Maid are phony and unbelievable from the social worker to the Fisher Island homeowner to the Maid boss to the mother to the husband and on and on. Pretty much everyone. They are caricatures that do not reflect real people in real roles or real situations. It was written by someone with the usual pop culture agenda who really doesn't seem to have lived through most of the situations, albeit maybe one and they seem to have screwed that up given the lesson being proselytized. The show is an adult-ish drama version of those adolescent blockbuster movies that has very little grounding in reality at all.
The Hero (2017)
Just ride off into the sunset already
It seems like everyone who likes this movie just can't get enough of Sam Elliott's melancholy brooding, staring off into space and poignant pauses. Good grief. After 5 minutes that gets old. Sam Elliott has gotten a lot of mileage out of that well worn, old rancher shtick and has made a career of it because of its appeal (as is obvious by the way too high rating here on IMDB), but this movie was just too much of that. In smaller doses, like in the series The Ranch, it was palatable, but for a movie that is built completely around it, it's way overdone. Elliott's acting (playing the dying aging actor Lee Hayden) is ok for doing what he does, but it's actually all he does. He's a personality actor, not a character actor by any stretch, and if you like what he does, I get it, but outside of that the movie was just not good. The plot was totally predictable, there was no chemistry between Elliott and his love interest played by Laura Prepon, the dialogue was forced and not realistic, some scenes were phony and just there to create tension and push the plot forward (the comedy club), his relationship with his estranged daughter was laughable instead of tragic as intended, and the old western movie dream sequences that were thrown in just for cinematic appeal offered no value and were non-sequiturs. His wife (played by his real wife Katharine Ross) and his drug dealer (played by Nick Offerman) were two characters that were in scenes that were somewhat entertaining. But this was a long, slow movie that was really B-O-R-I-N-G, and I'm a fan of slow movies that examine the human condition. But this self-absorbed, one-trick pony, lackluster romance movie is badly written and not very well acted that was difficult to stay engaged with. You just want Lee to ride off into the sunset and get it over with already.
Men in Kilts: A Roadtrip with Sam and Graham (2021)
A good series doesn't mean the actors' roadshow will be good
What a pathetic show. If this is the kind of entertainment being professionally produced out of Scotland, it's DOA. Twenty-something youtubers have content that blows this away. The interaction between Heughan and McTavish is flat. B-O-R-I-N-G. The prepared bits with the trawler and the restaurant and the distillery are equal parts boring, childish, asinine, tone-def and stupid. People are paid to produce this crap? This is pure garbage. And I'm a fan of Outlander, Scotland, seafood and whiskey and this thing fails at bring out anything redeeming in any of those categories. I gave it a chance because of Outlander, but I'm not wasting time on another episode.
Mr. Robot (2015)
Like watching a cartoon
I only made it half way through the second episode of the first season and it took all I could to suspend disbelief enough to get that far. I can't believe that this show gets as many positive reviews as it does. It's like a movie made for 12 year olds, if that. Are people so divorced from reality or are they so hungry for a geek fantasy that they will put up with this type of farce? The way that corporations are displayed and how upper management acts and how employees relate to each other is all off the chart silly. The idea that some IT guy can bring down the world or that there is some Coney Island stealth group working to do that is just dumb. The plot that some young, mentally ill, drug addict IT guy is so smart and valuable the biggest corporation will do anything to get him to work for them is laughable. The ridiculous things are endless like the cheating husband's dog being taken by Eliot, having the caring drug dealer neighbor, having girls naked left and right wanting Eliot with no effort on his part, having a client trying to save his therapist in her personal life, that 11 lawyers who did nothing were at some meeting with the big wig of E Corp and Eliot and then ordered to walk out as if they were some props which they were, that Eliot the world's greatest hacker sits around snorting morphine and not injecting it, that Eliot is a world class genius everyone wants, the scene where the DDOS attack occurred was hokey, just about every single Eliot hacking scene is not believable, the E Corp guys riding around like the secret service. On and on and on. The show is a cartoon and completely divorced from real life at every level (relationships, hacking, corporations, IT departments, morality, drugs, white collar workers, the WHOLE PLOT, etc.). Watching Marvel or Bugs Bunny is more realistic than this garbage.
Meek's Cutoff (2010)
Great realistic psychological thriller period piece with some failings
I'm still waiting for a realistic Western to be made. This one got certain elements right, but others very wrong. May western films don't even attempt realism, and many of the ones that do fail miserably because of biases and social leanings of the studios, directors, producers, etc. as well as lack of understanding about the land and the people that inhabited the west. The evolution of the Western movie has followed cultural shifts in America and rather than being about a historical time and place become more about making a point or continuing stereotypes. And a lot are just about wham-bam shoot-em-up entertainment (no thank you Tarantino). The Atlantic has written about the evolution of the Western genre in much greater depth and clarity than I could even attempt:
Kelly Reichardt's movie continues the bias (women who act far out of cultural norms and character (for both then and now) because hey, this is the time of The Woman and they are Strong; men who are relegated to the background because hey, they already had their turn and who cares; Indians who are used as convenient plot pieces and lightening rods to make a point rather than doing things actual Indians would have done in that situation. But Kelly does a nice job on certain elements of realism such as the clothing, the wagons, the dusty landscapes, the rundown raggedy condition of the characters, the psychological drama and uncertainty. But she also gets a lot of things wrong (you don't find a huge alkaline lake like the one in the movie and then not have a clean water source). All able-bodied men don't leave behind all the women and children in search of water. Two of the most able-bodied men don't risk themselves and the group to go after some pesky non-threatening Indian on the periphery to capture him in Indian country. And two men would not be successful in hunting down an Indian unless he wanted to be captured without incident. All that was very phony and unbelievable. But back to the positive elements: the cinematography captures Oregon's high desert country and the score matches the scenery and mood of the characters very well. Kelly does an excellent job of giving the story a sense of realism of traveling across the desert in wagons and highlighting elements of the human character and response to crisis. These things are the best elements of the movie and create an entertaining and rich experience. The Ballad of Lester Scrugs is also in the same vein.
As for highlighting the drama experienced by the characters, some of the things done well were the panic, fear and paranoia of Millie Gately freaking out that they were going to be killed by Indians. The calmness and wisdom in the face of crisis of Soloman Tetherow. The rebelliousness and righteousness of Emily Tetherow. The stoicism of Glory and Willam White. The curiosity and adventuresomeness of Jimmy White. The perplexing behavior of the Indian: was the Indian childlike or malicious? The ambiguity of Meek's intentions: was Meek evil or ignorant? The movie is part psychological thriller, part western adventure, part examination of the human condition under pressure, part questioning what is in a person's soul.
For those that thought the movie was too slow: get off of social media for a while and experience life's tempo once again. The slowness was appropriate for the story, the characters and the time.
For those who thought the dialogue was too quiet, turn up the sound or turn on captions. The dialogue was mostly on point and not phony.
For those who wanted a definitive ending: really? ambiguity and lack of closure is too difficult to handle?
It doesn't matter if they found water or not. It's a day in the life type movie, a slice of life. You are a fly on the wall. Enjoy the moment for the moment. Life is ambiguous and often lacks any closure. Why shouldn't a movie try to be more like real life while at the same time adding drama and examining the human condition in detail? This is the highest achievement a movie can accomplish.
As for the acting, Michelle Williams did a great job as Emily and you can't help by like her and root for her. Bruce Greenwood did a great job as Meeks and you can't help but both like and hate him. The rest of the characters kind of melt into the background other than a few scenes. And Jimmy and the Indian who do well enough, but are not really noteworthy.
For those who can't stand the ending, how's this. At the end they find a tree that is alive and refer to the fact that trees need water to survive. That actually was kind of dumb because trees in the high desert of Eastern Oregon can live in very dry landscapes with no potable water anywhere nearby because they survive on the winter rains. Anyway, back to the ending: When the Indian is going forward leading the way over the next hill, in the background you can see what looks like distant hills indicating there is a valley between the foreground hills and the background hills. That landscape looks exactly like what parts of the Columbia River valley looks like as it flows through Eastern Oregon.
Dead to Me (2019)
Fake and Sanctimonious
What a abominable series. Buddy chick movie with very unlikable tough girl (Christina Applegate) constantly blowing top and bullying everyone including the likable but obsequious sidekick (Linda Cardellini) who is constantly apologizing. Applegate's outbursts are way overdone and I don't think that's just the character that she is playing. Outside of these two, just about every other character is one-dimensional and exists just as backdrop for these two.
The dialogue is very unbelievable to the point that it completely undermines many of the scenes. The script is like it was written by 14 year olds who have had no life experiences with many of the elements being portrayed having very little grounding in reality including portrayal of crime, police, death, grief, real estate, school, parenting, banking, money, money laundering, auto body work, making a living, etc. In all, just about everything is phony and unbelievable including many of the human interactions and actions.
One of the biggest problems is that the Applegate character's lines and actions are completely disassociated to what a real person would do. She's like a cartoon character that is constantly overreacting, under-reacting or doing things that don't make sense in the context of the scene or subplot. And she is extremely unlikable. Other characters are introduced that have phony dialogue and attributes that make no sense and are just for the purposes of the sub-plot or making a scene work. They are also very unbelievable.
Just about every character is one-dimensional and all the men are there just to be foils for the two "hey girl" female leads. The script treats these two as heroines and justifies whatever horrible acts and crimes they commit while at the same time damning men for much less transgressions. A lot of the script and plot is to push the strong woman agenda that woman are in control and can fight, talk and justify every wrong they commit while men are the weak, malicious, philandering, bumbling, idiot bad guys who are the cause of all problems and deserve everything bad that happens to them. Or that women have power and can do everything men can do, and when they can't, they have the power to hire men to do it. A number of holier-than-though ranting lectures are thrown in about how not to call a woman crazy or say they over-react and that these things must just stop (although the two leads do it constantly with impunity).
The usual PC racial characters are thrown in to get the numbers up and they are in unbelievable, silly and flat roles. The children are either overly sweet or wildly rebellious. Everyone is an unrealistic caricature. The unbelievable dialogue becomes very repetitive as the same conversations happen over and over between characters across the episodes. The initial plot had some merit and is enough to pull someone in to watch, but things just get worse and worse and by season two, it's unwatchable and has the viewer regretting ever giving the series a chance in the first place.
Badland (2019)
Awful
Horrible. No, really. This is not even B movie level. There is nothing valuable about this film. The overused, "well, that's 2 hours that I can never get back" has never been more appropriate. I'm giving it 1 star because of some of the backdrop scenery since nothing in the foreground was of any value. Bad premise, bad plot, bad acting, bad action scenes, bad characters, bad directing, bad everything. I really can't remember watching something so bad. Why did I get hooked into watching it? Because I like westerns and needed a fantasy flick diversion after being saturated with imploding societal headlines for weeks on end.
White knight crusader righting society's wrongs and saving damsels in distress all done in today's politically correct climate artificially transplanted 150 years ago. No character is real in this film. They are not only one-dimensional and phony, but they are so badly done they are not even caricatures. Gunslinger with supernatural shooting powers, black powerful characters heading up law enforcement agencies, silent wise Indians having magical medical powers, strong women struggling against all odds, beautiful prostitutes, strong silent type leading man, unredeemable bad guys working hard for you to hate them, demonization of all things "the south". Even writing about it makes me cringe. Not a single scene is real or believable. The dialogue is ridiculous. The pace is agonizingly slow. The fighting scenes could have been better choreographed by 10 year old boys. The story-line is atrocious and each chapter is a cliche. This movie stinks. Don't waste your time.
How to Fix a Drug Scandal (2020)
Excellent on many levels
Excellent docu-series that examines the failures of the Massachusetts criminal justice system from the bottom to the top, from the lab workers all the way to the attorney general. Just about everyone on here giving negative reviews is doing so not because of the quality of the film, but rather because it doesn't fit with their limited and biased world views that are driven by their anti-drug biases where they only saw the "bad guys" getting off on a technicality. The important story here is the callousness of those who hold the lives of thousands of people in their hands and their miscarriage of justice in what is supposed to be a fair and impartial system based on rules where the upholders of the rules can break the rules with impunity while those on the other end of the system are harshly punished far out of proportion to what they have done. At the heart of it, it's about the dangers of massive bureaucracies that are based on misguided policies and are rife with sloppiness, malevolence, heartlessness, zealotry, incompetence, lack of quality and self-serving individuals who have the ability to take away the freedom of millions of people without being held accountable.
The series does a great job laying out the story lines, integrating real footage and re-enactments, delving into the many characters in sensitive and compassionate ways, deftly switching back and forth between the two stories that were the impetus of the legal battle, portraying the opaque layers of bureaucracy, highlighting the various lawyers in their David and Goliath struggle to get to the truth and showing how the supposed criminal justice system is often not just. It is filled with twists and turns and suspense and dramatically illustrates how people's lives are affected at every level of the system and how dangerous unaccountable systems can be. It ranks up there with Netflix's other great docu-series.
Lost in Space (2018)
Hokey science. Hokey characters. Hokey plot. But nevertheless entertaining if you can overlook all that.
One of the ironies of the show is that much of the plot is about the science of getting through physics problems and that the female lead is known for her scientific knowledge but it appears that none of the writers have ever taken a basic science course. The freezing water in the first episode that many reviewers here have poked holes through is just one of an endless stream of physics blunders. There are many others. The impossibility of survivnig a rocket exploding as it launces into outer space leaving the crew members holding onto the shell orbiting the planet and just chatting. The idea that a goldilocks planet could exist in a binary star-black hole solar system. The idea that a planet could be wiped clean by radiation during part of its orbit then bounce back full of complex life forms during the other part of its orbit. The idea that flying dinsaur poop could be converted within a few hours into enough methane gas to launch at least 3 rockets into outer space. The idea that people in a spaceship could find 2 people stranded orbiting the same planet somewhere in a mattter of minutes like they were picking up someone down the block. The idea that..., well nevermind, you get the picture. Hokey science.
Most of the characters are cardboard cutouts and they only fulfill a needed plot line rather than interacting and evolving with each other in realistic ways. Maureen and John alternate playing the alpha female/male role between each other. The genius young 17 year old doctor June is wise beyond her years and constantly providing her superior moral compass. The silly Penny plays her siblings and romantic sidekick for goofs and laughs. Will is the dumbstruck boy who tries to control the Robot. Dr. Smith is the morally corrupt bad-gal everybody loves to hate. Don West is the class clown yucking it up. They each get their turn and are shown doing their stick repeatedly. Almost no other characters are gone into at all, but I guess since they're all written off at the end of season one, why bother. Not only are the main characters written flat, but they are acted flatly as well. Most of the time you can feel the cameras are rolling and the lines were rehearsed. It also appears that the PC police have taken over casting. When it becomes obvious that people were cast because they are check-off's on the demographic check-off list, there is a problem. Hokey characters and acting.
The plot line as it unfolds bit by bit over the season without fulling coming to light, is pretty phony as well. A character gets approved for an interstellar mission that millions of people would be vying for given the state of Earth, because his mom changed the results of his space test that he failed. A character gets on an interstellar mission by tying up one of the approved astronauts and then taking her place. A husband being divorced by his wife then joins her and the kids on multi-light-year voyage with the wife being cold and holding onto a grudge against him when they are almost literally the last 2 people on Earth because he worked too much and didn't spend enough time at home. Then there are the advanced alien life forms that would rather fight each other than deal with the Earthlings they came to deal with. There is a spaceship full of people orbiting a planet without the ability to go pick up survivors on the planet without the survivors telling them that they are there. Hokey plot.
What saves this show is the ability to binge watch it, that it is entertaining as it goes from from one disaster to the next with the protagonists escaping with their lives by the skins of their teeth, that it has romantic ideas of space travel and astrophysics, that the CGI graphics are pretty decent and that there is a robot you kind of like, but you don't know what he/it is going to do next. Bottom line it's farcical, entertaining pap, but hey, isn't that what TV is sometimes for?
Shameless (2011)
The good, bad and the ugly
Shameless is an often well written, often well acted comi-tragedy about a dysfunctional family set in the southside of Chicago. While it is a great show, it does have its share of deficiencies and contradictions. Here are some of the pros and cons.
Pros: It appears that some of the writers have been around the block and experienced the underbelly of life. There are situations and scenes where whoever wrote it must have experienced them and does a good job of portraying them on the screen. The rawness and realism of some scenes are amazing. This show doesn't shy away from dealing with addictions, the legal system, poverty, LGBT issues, child abuse, death, love, sex, birth defects, infidelity, sibling rivalry, con artists, murder, education, adolescence, adulthood, crime, redemption and more in very authentic ways. In short in deals with the real problems of life. The show can be extremely grounded in reality and has moments of greatness in its dealing with all of the above issues. There are shows and scenes where one is riveted because of the intensity and realness. It has some great editorials given by different characters at different times that are often well thought through in their assessments of life. It doesn't shy away from controversy. The story line morphs and unfolds and takes surprising twists and turns sometimes very quickly. Some of the casting is great and one never tires of seeing those characters' foibles and adventures.
Cons: Of course it's main goal is to entertain but it often results in an over-concentration of drama and plot into time, place and characters that is very unrealistic. There are some story lines that are so are fetched one loses interest. The show can be at once a parody of itself, farcical, cartoonish and unbelievable. It overplays depravity for effect and shock value. It goes overboard on sexual situations making them overly animalistic repetitively, creating them for pure audience titillation or making them so exaggerated as to make them just silly. I'm sure the new atmosphere in Hollywood is going to make these types of shows harder to make. There are situations that are downright ridiculous and lose the audience in their requirement to suspend disbelief and seem to have been written by writers who have no clue. Some of the acting is very bad while some of it is great and both can be applied sometimes to the same character. Some of the casting is bad and over time you can't wait for the characters to be written off the stage. Sometimes the themes are overplayed and get boring.
Overall, I'd rate it up there with great shows like Breaking Bad and Mad Men. It is very entertaining. It's must watch TV if you want to see one of the best shows of our time.
Ex Machina (2014)
Interesting premise badly executed
Well, first define intelligence. There are all kinds of intelligent life on earth that don't get recognition, so I'm not sure the robotic kind is anywhere near competing with the most basic existing intelligence, say bacteria: http://cosmicfingerprints.com/intelligent-bacteria/. All the trailer hoopla and name dropping with warnings about AI tried to build the premise about being on the brink of human extinction at the hands of AI, but the movie did not make a good case for it.
I wanted to like this movie, but it has a number of problems working against it for suspending disbelief, including the inventor of the greatest search engine and AI ever (watch out Google) who lives as a recluse on his property in the woods that is the size of a small country, a teenage looking boy-next-door employee chosen to test out the company's premier product and sexy robots whose hardware we get to see.
The bad guy genius doesn't really come across like a bad guy or a genius, more like an amiable, alcoholic frat buddy who hasn't quite thought through basic security. The protagonist is hard to root for given he falls in love with a plastic/light-up robot a few minutes after meeting "her" and then spends the rest of the movie trying to save her like a knight in shining armor. And then there's the girl robot who doesn't really come across as a robot, but as a girl trying to act like a robot.
The story takes a hopeful turn when there is a possibility that almost everyone is a robot, but that hope is dashed quickly. There are attempts at reaching some philosophical heights with references to Jackson Pollack's painting style and the Bhagavad Gita, but those really go nowhere. The parallel that humans are just programmed beings was probably the most powerful insight of the film, but it never gets fleshed out.
The end felt unnecessary, farcical and manipulative and appears to want the viewer to interpret it as the machines have taken over. This is pretty absurd given that the lab for creating them has been abandoned and the one person who could make another one is not able to.
The movie does build suspense well and has some interesting twists, but with all the suspense and twists it works to build to a crescendo that never appears and instead is replaced with a forced and contrived ending that really didn't make any profound statement about artificial intelligence at all.