Review of Automata (2011) by Dean K — 04 Dec 2014

Riddled with as many plot holes as the rust on dystopian mold, Automata stutters worse than an old wind-up toy. Although a reminiscence of "I, Robot", the movie does start with decent prospect. It is at least intriguing and Antonio Banderas plays as a character in torn down world with suitable heavy gait. However, the plot moves painstakingly slow and it doesn't really progress toward anything significantly. Some scenes are simply uninteresting with questionable twist or just plain lacking in exposition to clarify the story while the characters are pushed towards accepting random outcome unreasonably.

Antonio Banderas plays as Jacq Vaucan, an insurance investigator who stumbles upon evidence that the robot humanity uses to make shelter in post-apocalyptic world may become sentient. The setting, barren modern cityscape, has its charm although there isn't any that's really outstanding. Everything just feels bogged down with bits from other sci-fi movies, but never comes into one consistent world. The story tries to deliver the same enigma that robot may have self-awareness, and does nothing to rejuvenates or at least present itself in a novel fashion.

Plot will just move with hefty confusion, events rushed with little sense and characters react in odd manners. It merely regurgitates most sci-fi movies did better, without bringing satisfying conclusion. There are too many concepts that are not answered, or answered lazily with tired "Life finds a way" of some sort, only slightly yet still lazily reworded, to convince audience of any weight to its script. What a couple decent thing it makes in the beginning will fade away as the movie crawls numbingly pass its second half. Music tries desperately to instill any form of dramatization, even to simple conversation, it comes off as really heavy-handed and fruitless attempt.

Acting isn't that good either, Antonio Banderas is capable, but even he seems disordered at some points and the script doesn't help much. In some scenes the actors feel out of place or worse, unintentionally funny. The characters just don't convey any emergence or significance, and it's hard to relate to any predicament. As for the robotic roles, they are made with slight humane gesture or accidental facial similarity as attempts to humanize them, but they look so detached it's near impossible to sympathize with them. Any CG added at this point might only worsen the matter rather than help.

Automata is an odd movie, it borrows from sci-fi blockbusters, but doesn't have their flair. It tries to be artistic, but it lacks depth. The stifling struggle for identity is truer to the movie itself than the characters in it, because it has none.