Rent Subservience (2024)

Weak, Daft Robot SciFi - Subservience review by GI

A thoroughly predictable and extremely implausible science fiction film that warns of the dangers of AI. It's another robot narrative that is schlocky and daft and tries to play in the themes that hugely better films have done before such as Blade Runner (1982), Ex Machina (2014) and The Stepford Wives (1975); there's even a Terminator scene thrown in for good measure. This is set in the near future where very human-like robots called SIMS are freely available as workers, servants etc etc. When humble construction manager Nick (Michele Morrone) is faced with looking after his two children as his wife is hospitalised he buys a SIM which he names Alice (Megan Fox). Despite the fact that he can afford what should be a highly expensive piece of kit it also happens to be a very sexually alluring model! Eventually of course he fucks Alice and fails to act when it begins to offer some disturbing behaviour. When Nick's wife comes home Alice proves to be rather dangerous for reasons that are not really followed through in the narrative. There's some huge gaps in this image of the future, indeed apart from robots that are basically indistinguishable from humans (more human than human as a better film once said) there seems to be nothing else much different. There's even a lack of basic CCTV allowing the plot to have a crime that would be easily resolved today let alone in a few years time! In short you can pull holes galore in this and despite some horrific violence it's a film that could have been great but is sadly a throwaway.

Soapy Sex-Robot Melodrama, a bit like a Poundland Stepford Wives. Made in Bulgaria - Subservience review by PV

A look at the credits reveals this is made in Bulgaria, with most crew with names ending in -ov, and actors too. The main actor is an Italian man, and the director made his only other movie with the same main actress in 2021 (TILL DEATH).

It is watchable but at times feels like a soft porn movie showing latenight on Channel 5. It has that B-movie-for-TV feel, with the pulsing soundtrack background music always on. Some neat sequences though and dramatic tension, however unlikely. A popcorn movie, for sure, but relatively effective. The lot is absurd, with slush ladled on with the hospital op theme etc.

I liked the AI reference, though generative AI will not create human-like mannekens, almost impossible to do that; no, AI will just replicate humans online and datascrape text written by real humans, editing it to produce 'new' work; or mimicking voices or faking photos and films.

M3GAN and M3GAN2 are the latest robot-gone-wrong movies, and MICKEY17 maybe, but there've been MANY films about robots gone wrong, the WESTWORLD movie 1973 is a great example, and the TV series takes the theme further, and I suppose Spielberg's AI (2001) and the under-rated 1988 Canadian horror film PIN. I suppose The Stepford Wives (1975 movie the best not the newer version) counts too and Fritz Lang's Metropolis. So nothing new here.

Watchable but forgettable. 3 stars. Just

Watchable with some nice touches - Subservience review by Alphaville

Familiar but engrossing robot-goes-bad horror trope. Not to everyone’s taste, but it’s well directed and keeps you watching. Might be more convincing if supposedly attractive robot Megan Fox wasn’t so horribly glammed up. It’s effective at what it does, with some unexpectedly moving scenes between our hero and his ailing wife, for whom Megan has been assigned to help, but the main problem is we’re just waiting for Megan to go bad.