The Pod Generation

It's late 21st century New York City. Humanity is slowly divorcing itself from nature. Alvy Novy (Chiwetel Ejiofor) is studying the unusual field of horticulture. His wife Rachel Novy (Emilia Clarke) is more normal. She gets an opportunity to have a child through the latest version of the pod. It's an artificial form of gestating their baby.

Initially, I'm 50-50 with this premise. Sci-fi often does these big swings and they don't always make sense. I don't completely buy this world. Slowly, the movie gets a bit more quirky and ridiculous. It starts injecting a comedic tone. It's funny but not laugh out loud funny. It's a small sci-fi which is likely to be lost in the mix unless one is searching for some Ejiofor or Emilia Clarke.

In this world where mother nature is transplanted - transferred, replaced, displaced, where surrogates are grafted, you have a partner who's organic, whose whole life is quite botanic, but you take him to a place, where dreams are shafted. Incubation is the option you have chosen, allows you to pursue your work, without demotion, devolution is the way, an evolving science day, although at first, you may just lack, vital devotion. As for concerns, a trip to the all seeing eye - will resolve anxiety and clarify, that you must do as you are told, you must remain part of the fold, this is the way the human race will multiply.

Not as good as it could have been.

Start's off strong and intriguing with dark undertones..... around halfway through the film however, it just suddenly turns silly. The behaviour of the two leads becomes juvenile and slapstick and it goes from alluding to being more of a thriller into a light hearted comedy. It also slows pace massively and the second half is just padded out with nothing really interesting happening and just more of a romance story.

This would have been better suited to an hour long short show, and it ending with a sinister tone. The two leads act well with what they are given. The dreamlike sequences were also overused massively and irrelevant to the story.

I liked the premise of the film and the visuals so it had that going for it. It got the sci-fi aesthetic right at least.

"The Pod Genetation" is a sci fi movie that critisizes the evolution of AI and how that can overtake even nature.

The story has a smooth start and it is obvious from the begining that something is off. The big eyes of the AI assistants, the wierd Pod company, the creepy 'psychologist', even the office environment along with the AI home assistant who was trying to be helpful but ended up dictating her owners' lives, everything lean in to a more horror genre, which the movie never lived up to. Rather, the story took a turn towards the more optimistic side, opting for a message where the human relationships and nature prevails. And, honestly, that was a nice touch.

However, the story did get stuffy towards the ending and there were some boring scenes as well. In addition, the humour was subtle and, sometimes, difficult to detect.

Finally, the performances were enjoyable.

The Pod Generation isn't perfect and the responses have been pretty mediocre and low from the general public and critics but personally, I thought it was decent.

The movie explores an interesting narrative concept about the futuristic world of artificial wombs or pods with some beautiful futuristic production designs and make-up throughout. The camerawork is pretty good with the colorful lightening, settings, designs and special effects helping to add the futuristic setting and environment. With an solid soundtrack and direction as well.

The narrative is interesting and does provide some strong elements about human evolution and technology together. However, some of the narrative themes does feel a little preachy and inconsistent regarding it's message and social commentaries that is is trying to explore. The performances from Emilia Clarke and Chiwetel Ejiofor are pretty great and the two of them have surprisingly pretty good chemistry between on another.

One of the weaker elements are the characters as the characters aren't as fully interesting or engaging to connect with as much. There are some decent dialogue moment as well. Some of the pacing could have been improved.

Overall, it's decent.