I made the wrong choice of film to watch. The whole weekend was a disappointment of cinema attendance. I watched Iron Lung – one man in a submarine for two hours – and then I went to see Mercy instead of Shelter. The tide was low as I drove to the showing. After the film I rated this on IMDb and I gave it four out of ten. There’s a communication somewhere way back that tells you how the scoring system works.
I spent some time during this film wondering whether to leave or not. I was miffed at watching another film with just one person starring in a single location. It didn’t look good. Yes, there was the AI judge but it’s AI so doesn’t count as a person. I though Judge Maddox was looking rather Starbuck like during the film and I wonder if that’s the hairstyle and look Hollywood now associates with strong female characters.
Amusingly this film was financed by Amazon and it effectively is an argument against AI. The irony was not lost on me. The main actor, one of the Chris people, was OK in all this but hardly a likable character. A violent drunk who’s only conviction is that he wouldn’t hurt his wife. It’s OK the film tells us, there’s a good reason he’s a drunk. Bullshit, say I. You can’t write this stuff and make the guy likeable. I don’t think I mind him being an alcoholic, but he is a cop and a dick. Worse than that he’s an american cop and that makes him very dodgy. I didn’t care if he got killed or not by the state.
I was hoping to see an action film with stupid stunts. What I saw was a cheap film with no discussion of the morals of AI usage in the real world. Just the explosive outcome at the end of the film. Why would an AI judge have a face? Why would it be white? Why would it have emotions? Why would it glitch? Gosh, it’s a bad film.