Automata
(2014)
(SPOILERS) Gabe Ibáñez’s assured sci-fi B-movie is an
unashamed throwback. Heavily influenced by Blade
Runner, it surrounds itself with sand rather than rain but is otherwise a similarly
imagined world of holographic animations, old school sci-fi sound effects, and probing
questions over the nature of consciousness. In the latter respect, it scores
over the more recent I, Robot,
although both movies rely heavily on Asimov’s laws of robotics (redefined here
as protocols). Indeed, the first 40 minutes or so suggest this could be
something special, a B picture rising above its limitations through sheer force
of well-expressed ideas. It’s a shame, then, that Automata settles back into standard pursue-and-destroy plotting
during the last half.
Ibáñez certainly makes the most of his $15m budget and
cost-conscious Bulgarian shoot. This world is spartan and derivative, but
precisely devised. So too, the robot designs are distinctive and memorable.
There’s no money for the Apple-tech of I,
Robot, but the use of physical animatronics lends welcome tangibility.
Antonio Banderas is Jacq Vallan, an insurance investigator
for the ROC company (about as prestigious a job as Chris Pine’s compliance
officer in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit),
manufacturer of robot helpers called Pilgrims. It’s 2044, and solar flares have
devastated the Earth’s population to a miniscule 21 million; the robots are
able to operate in the inhospitable, irradiated desert environment while the
humans make do in fortified cities. Vallan is called upon to investigate an
apparent case of robot self-modification, an act running strictly against their
protocols; they are (familiarly) unable to harm humans, and also prevented from
altering/improving themselves or others. As Vallan’s investigation proceeds,
searching for the clocksmith (one who upgrades robots on the black-market)
responsible, so the ROC Corporation acts to bury the evidence.
Ibáñez and co-writers Igor Legarreta and Javier Sanchez Donate
incorporate many familiar elements from the cinematic legacy of Philip K Dick.
The modified sexbots suggest Blade Runner’s
pleasure model replicants, even though these are decidedly rudimentary by
comparison. Vallan, like Rick Deckard, is burnt out and wants to leave (perhaps
in a nod to the studio-dictated 1982 release conclusion of Blade Runner, Vallan wants to escape to a mythic ocean of his
childhood memories). Dylan McDermott’s dodgy cop Wallace is a vision of greedy ‘80s
pestilence, slicked back hair and permanently-in-place shades. He wouldn’t look out of place
in a Trancers sequel. His pet name
for robots (“Clunkers”) is similar to
the vernacular adopted in Blade Runner
with its “skin jobs”. There is even a
cylinder of boiling eggs, although no one puts their hand in it.
There’s also an elegant score from Zacarias M de la Riva, underlying
that the picture is aiming to be as much of a thought piece as it is a revel in
dystopian gloom. Then there’s the duplicitous company, a futuristic mainstay
from Alien onwards. More recent
still, the mass garbage dump outside the city, where trespassers are shot on
sight, recalls the singular (as in one-note) vision of Neill Blomkamp.
Automata’s best plot
element relates to the conundrum of how these robots could be modified to the
point where they can achieve self-actualisation. This is beyond the abilities
of the best clocksmith; amending the robots protocols is memorably expressed as
trying to hold a soap bubble in one’s pocket. The backstory, when it comes, offers
the kind of tantalising intrigue the picture loses as it progresses.
The first created Pilgrim wasn’t bound by the limitations of
the protocols, and its understanding progressed exponentially beyond that of
humans; after nine days, “we stopped
being able to understand it”. Why that robot then (in the eight days
previous?) obediently put in place the protocols for all that came after is
unclear, as is why/how it was allowed to wander off on its own into the desert
(unless this is another robot imbued
with understanding; if so, Ibáñez and co have not made themselves
clear). Nevertheless, it’s an arresting idea that travels if isn’t poked at too
closely.
One thing the manhunt of the second half allows is
exploration of the robot consciousness. Sure, the Clunkers are given some clunky
lines (“To die you have to be alive first”
Clara “sarcastically” parrots back at Vallan when he expresses concern for the
robots’ safety; earlier he used the same sentence to disparage her) but their
implacability is winning. They refuse to take Vallan back to the city (“If we go back to the city we will die”,
they repeat as a mantra), but do their best to uphold the first protocol by
feeding him bugs and manufacturing a water condenser.
If Vallan’s transit from disinclination to care isn’t
entirely convincing, mainly because we never really believe he holds the robots
in callous disregard in the first place, Ibáñez wholly succeeds in creating
empathy for his automatons. From the first scene, where one shields its face
before Wallace blows it away, it’s evident whose side he’s on. This continues
with a robot self-immolating, several cruel instances of robot massacres, and
the crescendo of protests that accompany Wallace threatening Vallan (“Stop sir, you are putting a human life in
danger”).
Unfortunately, this all leads towards a rather clumsy speech
in which the original robot (if that is who he is intended to be) considers the
passing of humanity on a cosmic scale, and the continuance of the robot race (“Surviving is not relevant. Living is” it
replies when Vallan notes the Pilgrims were supposed to help humanity survive).
The problem with the reveal of the original is that this robot with a brain the
size of a planet can’t possibly impress us accordingly (even if it isn’t the
original, it’s surely been out in the desert longer than the nine days it took
that robot to advance beyond the point where humans could understand it; maybe
it’s having to dumb itself down to chat to Vallan?) On the other hand,
reformatting automaton kind into the form of the most attuned survivor, the cockroach,
is a neat touch.
Ibáñez is unable to create the ambient coherence of Ridley
Scott’s masterpiece, but he includes the occasional notable element. The child
assassins who turn up at the door of Melanie Griffith’s clocksmith are a
suitably sick touch. The subplot involving Vallan’s wife is a damp squib,
though, and bringing her out to the desert seems like a really desperate plot
choice. It doesn’t help that Birgitte Hjort Sørensen is rather annoying (I
found her to be so in Borgen too, so
it’s probably just me).
The supporting cast are suitably B-reliable. McDermott has
fun being a bit of a dick. Robert Forster is dependably grizzled, while
Griffith looks so surgically modified she might be an automaton herself. Her
vocalising of Cleo is beautifully modulated, however (Javier Bardem also
provides a robot voice). There’s a Brit contingent here too, with Andrew
Tiernan, a mystifyingly underused Geraldine Somerville (did all her scenes end
up on the cutting room floor?) and a tiresomely and rather OTT-motivated Tim
McInnery. Banderas is solid enough, spending much of his time acting against
robots, but he’s a more engaging actor when he’s allowed to express a bit of
brio.
Automata isn’t
anything special, then, and it drags once its plot decelerates into formulaic
bad guys chasing the good guys/bots, but it’s a reasonably engaging and
undemanding B-movie. Ibáñez knows how to create a milieu, and if this is a Hollywood
calling card it won’t be long before he’s playing with the big guns. They just
shouldn’t let him write his own scripts, though; he may have more ideas than a
Blomkamp or a Paul W Anderson, but as yet he’s unable to pull his material
together into something satisfying.
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