Next Gen

There is something compelling about making a movie that observes Man's ever more reliance of machinery to find joy and meaning into their lives. Mai's mother uses it to forget about her husband, others use it to enhance their entertainment factor or as a way to impress others.

The world building is pretty good, especially how robotics weaves itself into the future USA. As a marketer, I feel bad that we are going to bombard people with branding 24/7 to get them to buy our products.

This could have been a fantastic film if it weren't for such an self centered main character, who plays a selfish, petulant child nearly throughout the whole movie, treating her "friend" as a machine, blaming him and throwing guilt on it when it only has good intentions. There is something rotten about her soul, as she never learns her lessons from the pain she inflicts, whether it is being mean to her mom and causing a bully to cry, through most of the movie.

The robot character, 7723, is a much more compelling (although it is a low bar) character, someone learning human emotions but is a robot, similar to the Iron Giant, but he as long as he plays subservient to it's master Mai, it's growth is limited.

The movie somewhat redeems itself at the end. It could have taken the easy, Disney ending, but it took a bit of a smarter move, in the vein of The Iron Giant. It also helped redeem the annoying Mai who has to change from the role of taker to provider. However, by the time she learns her lesson, it is too late.