The Machine

The Machine is rated at four out of five stars on Netflix. It explores the endlessly interesting idea of computer sentience. It is from an independent studio. It has no big name stars. It must be good.

The Machine is not bad. It hits all of the right tropes. Noble tough scientist with a secret working for the good of humanity by, begrudgingly, selling out to the military. Idealistic, brilliant, and beautiful apprentice. I startling breakthrough that is both the answer and far beyond what was expected. Sniveling, evil, self-interested officials messing with things beyond their knowledge or control. Noble, but misunderstood, minions that eventually rise up. An ambiguos ending that points to points to hope for humanity or its ultimate doom.

The through line story is standard and unsurprising. Sadly, the director decided to use a lot of jump cutting to tell the story. I found it jarring and without merrit. In the beginign of the movie, it feels like a device to cram in as much set-up as possible in as little time as possible.

It does keep the running time down to a reasonable 90 minutes, but at the expense of the story. You never see the key relationship in the movie develop. You never get a sense of how the central character matures. Instead, you get sudden, sometimes discordant, shifts. Maybe this techniue is supposed to build suspense or be post modern, but I found it annoying.

The acting in the movie is wooden. Toby Stephens, as the sensitive, dark scientist, could easily be mistaken for a robot. His sole expression is pained, like he is constipated. His character does have a lot to be sad about, but some range would be nice. Caity Lotz, as the titular Machine, whose character should be the most wooden, is actually the better of the two leads. She manages to give the robotic machine some humanity while never breaking the illusion that she is a machine.

I gave The Machine three out of five stars. It was not a bad movie for a rainy day on the couch. It does raise some interesting ideas. It is not anything more than average TV fare.