abs-ghosh

This movie consistently pops up in my feed when I am searching for a good horror or Sci-fi movie. I generally pass it over for generally something more disappointing, knowing its just not for me. Welp, after evading this movie for well over a decade, I decided to finally give it a try and... it was exactly what I thought it would be...

In a fairly distant future where AI has been perfected to near human levels of emotions, Theodore, a talented love letter columnist for a magazine, has hit an emotional brick wall that keeps him from creating new lasting relationship with the people he meets in his life. While his letters are very emotional and soulful, he is hesitant to committing to anything tangible for fear of repeating his recent past. That is until he meets "Samantha", an AI based operating system that is personalized specifically to their user, and finds himself romantically involved with "her". There is just one big problem: Samantha has no body and wants more emotional involvement from Theodore, who is still not over his recent divorce with his high school soulmate.

Now before anyone thinks I am going to be negative towards this movie, its quite the opposite. This is a very intelligent film, where majority of the movie takes place via smartly written dialogue and interaction between Samantha and Theodore and a few people, that explores the concept of a loving relationship and how to move on from a failed relationship with a person that you considered to be the one. Problem, is that it's far too high minded for me and the fact that its more of a discussion than an actual story. For someone like me, looking for a conspiracy and action, this movie overlooks a lot of detail that is simply taken for granted which is hard to overlook such as the fact that Theodore just openly accepts falling in love with Samantha even though she is just a voice from a software in a machine or even how such a technological breakthrough is marketed for commercial use before being explored by the government. Some of these issues are casually mentioned but never reflected upon as their relationship is openly displayed in public. This has to be an alternative reality or a very distant future where people are past their insecurities and self awareness.

This is a scifi in the barest sense, where its used primarily as a minor backdrop which is used minimally for transitioning to a situation without ever really explaining it. If you are looking for some sort of twist, it does not exist. This is a very upfront movie that pretty much points out what its going to be rather than hide any surprises.

When the credits mention Beu Demayo's name I was expecting a quality animated movie but what I got was a hodgepodge mess of contradicting direction and pacing.

The story touches upon the events that lead to the downfall of the witchers. You follow the exploits of a young Vesamir as he goes from being a reckless boy in servitude to a smartass, sarcastic agile witcher that eventually inherits his role as a fatherly mentor to Geralt and a younger generation of Witchers.

The main plot is actually quite good but the writing and script felt rushed to the point where it doesn't dwell on anything long enough to capture any emotion. The voice acting is decent but the direction and tone contradict most of the urgency of events happening on screen and all the sound effects are heavily muted where if you were not looking at the screen would think its just a couple of characters having a casual conversation in a room.

It's even more confusing if your only references are the video games as the entire tone of this movie feels very light hearted and personalities do not match the characters you come to know in the series. My only suggestion is to not make this a dedicated movie night to save yourself the disappointment. I feel like this was meant to be watch impromptu without any expectations that why you only left confused much more so angry. It's a pity, there is a lot of potential in the story but Netflix being Netflix absolutely butchered it.