Netflix original viewed on August 15th in Winston-Salem, NC. This sci-fi thriller is directed by Federico D'Alessandro and stars Maika Monroe, Ed Skrein and Gary Oldman.
Monroe plays Julia, a street smart thief who rips off club goers. After a night of pilfering she is kidnapped and wakes up in a dungeon with two other people. She's also got a weird implant in the back of her neck to boot. Julia is subjected to some torture but manages to escape but before she can breath fresh air, a robot kills her cell mates and she is captured. She's kept alive probably because she's a young, good looking blonde woman. Given.
It turns out her captor, Alex (Skrein), is an Elon Musk type rich guy with a penchant for kidnapping people who won't be missed in order to run experiments on them in hopes that he can development artificial intelligence with a conscience. Or something to that affect. Alex has created an AI life form called TAU (voiced by Oldman) that runs his household. TAU is Alex's obedient servant. Alex has TAU administer psych tests to Julia but Julia realizes there might be a bit more to TAU and she befriends him.
The night before Alex's new creation is to be unveiled for his investors, things go awry as Julia plans her final escape.
This film received a 20% Rotten Tomatoes score and that might seem a bit harsh. This wasn't a very good film but there wasn't a lot of originality. It has aspects of Ex Machina, Saw and The Demon Seed. I also found it hard to believe that Alex, a really rich guy, takes the time to kidnap his subjects. He could easily farm that stuff out. The guy has no social skills but he's a real good kidnapper. It was also obvious that Julia was going to befriend TAU. Alex was a real jerk to TAU and kept him isolated from the world. Julia promised to "teach him about the world" and of course TAU digs it. Much like Frankenstein's monster, TAU turns on his master. There wasn't much tension or drama in this film. Skip it.
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