#Igor Legaretta Gomez

[adamwatchesmovies]

Autómata (2014)

While I didn't enjoy this film, that doesn't mean you won't. No matter what I say, the people involved in this project did it: they actually made a movie. That's something to be applauded. With that established...

Writer/director Gabe Ibáñez has clearly seen Blade Runner. He’s obviously read Isaac Asimov’s works. What he didn't do is learn from them. Autómata aspires to be another cerebral sci-fi film. Instead, it's just a cheap clone. The slivers of good ideas peppered throughout are lost in boredom. If that wasn't bad enough, the film can’t even get its own rules straight.

In 2044, 99% of humanity has died. The survivors live in cities surrounded by deserts and rely on humanoid robots called Pilgrims for day-to-day labor. These robots have two unalterable protocol: they cannot harm any form of life and cannot alter themselves or other robots in any way. Jacq Vaucan (Antonio Banderas) is an insurance investigator working for ROC - the company that manufactures Pilgrims - who learns that a robot may have found a way to circumvent the second protocol.

Autómata begins with a proxy for Asimov’s three laws of robotics and is set in the world of Blade Runner, with towering sexy lady holograms in the distance and a crappy, overpopulated city below. An interesting, if familiar setup. What's next? Instead of a cop, our protagonist is an everyman. That’s an unexpected turn. And then? Bad decisions. The machine who turns Jacq’s world upside down is a sex robot working at a brothel. Not only has it been modified to do things beyond its basic programming (not illegal), it’s able to inflict pain on its clients if they request it. Big no-no. Now we're going somewhere. Or so you think. The movie isn’t really interested in exploring this idea. In fact, the sexbot is a massive misstep. The thing doesn’t wear any clothes so you see it parade around in the nude. Every time you see it from the back, you notice its individually modelled butt cheeks and can’t stop thinking about what those greasy robot fetish perverts have done in between them. Grosser is the fact the robot doesn’t look human at all. When some dude can build a gynoid who looks EXACTLY like Scarlett Johansson (also very gross) and the people of 2044 are having sex with a fancy store mannequin, your movie’s got problems! It may seem like a trivial detail but this thing’s a big part of the movie and there was no reason to make it a sex robot!

As the audience tries their hardest not to stare at Cleo’s crotch and plastic breasts, wondering how or why exactly someone would pay to do anything with those, the picture introduces a conflict. Following some outrageously stupid decisions by Jacq, the authorities believe he’s in cahoots with the altered machine and decide to give chase. Time to introduce the flattest, most uninteresting, most one-dimensional evil baddies you could… and again, for no reason.

It’s a badly written film. Whenever interesting thoughts are introduced, there’s no follow-through. Instead, the story goes for the generic path, the uninteresting path. Antonio Banderas doesn’t feel right for the part. I don’t want to pigeon-hole him in the role of a sexy action hero but he spends the entire film covered in dust or miserable. The charismatic actor couldn't be less appealing. The special effects to bring the robots to life are quite good, up until the very end of the picture when we're introduced to a new model. It sticks out like a sore thumb. The longer you watch, the less forgiving you become. Even before Autómata unintentionally has one of the robots break its own rules, you’ve given up on it.

Those who appreciate a good science-fiction story are the only ones who might find anything appealing within Autómata - a generic robot title if I’ve ever heard one. Unfortunately, those same people have seen the works this one is aping dozens of times. It’s forgettable. (On DVD, June 21, 2019)