Automata

On Demand 27th April & Blu-ray and DVD

11th May, 2015

Automata takes you to a period where the majority of the world is uninhabitable due to radioactive deserts. The world’s population has deteriorated to a mere 21 million and they are all living in walled cities. The surviving humans are served by robots built by a company called ROC and installed with certain protocols that prevent them from altering themselves or from harming any form of life.

Jacq Vaucan, (Antonio Banderas) plays an insurance inspector for the company ROC, whose wife Rachel (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen), is about to have a baby. Rachel believes in a future whereas Jacq does not and all he wants to do is escape the city and find the ocean.

Automata is directed and co-written by Gabe Ibáñez, this movie has a very familiar tone and storyline to I, Robot, even down to the supposed rules that the robots have to live by, which of course some of them don’t.

The story kicks off with Jacq having to investigate a case where a dog has been killed by a robot, which would mean the second protocol has been breached. Continuing with his investigation; whether robots are breaking free of their protocols, Jacq stumbles on to a whole heap of trouble and ends up in the desert, being pursued by thugs sent by his company.

Antonio Banderas with his shaved head looking very glum throughout the entire movie, struggles some what with the script, you know what is going, but your almost bored by it, nothing was truly thrilling.

Reaching the half waypoint of this movie you’re in the desert with Jacq, who has pretty much had all the life sucked out of him and so has the movie.

Visually this movie is top-notch. The life like robots have been done really well, the surrounding landscape fits the story beautifully. In all honesty something never quite sits right with this movie, the only thing that comes in to mind is the script. Given the great way this film visually looks it a shame the scrip and storytelling wasn’t quite matched, very robotic, pardon the pun.