Woebots: Mother/Android & Zone 414

Mother/Android, 2021, Mattson Tomlin (Solomon Grundy) -- Netflix
Zone 414, 2021, Andrew Baird (Rebirth) -- Netflix

Without deep diving, I will just say I am fond of the android trope in scifi. But something about the concept has always bothered me. Why android, as in "why limit an artificial intelligence to a humanoid body?" Sure, from a tale telling concept, the Biblical comparisons to creating life in one's own image is obvious, but it seems inherent in the separate but connected trope that AI creation involves creating a walking, talking robot with two arms, two legs, and a face. Even from a non-AI robotics theme, limiting one's designs to humanoid shaped themes seems impractical. At least IRL, we see that the Boston Dynamics dog is proving itself well.

Both of these movies dive shallowly into this likely more fiction than reality desire to make humanoid robots as human as possible. Of course, they both come as cautionary tales.

Zone 414 is more neo-noir crime investigation than anything, which because of Bladerunner is now ingrained in the trope. David (Guy Pearce, The Rover), the grizzled private detective with a tragic past, is hired by Marlon Veidt (a mysteriously unrecognizable Travis Fimmel, Vikings), the creator of the world's best androids, to find his daughter. Despite having created almost human, independent androids which could have a myriad of uses in society, this world has decided they will serve one purpose only -- sex toys. Thus, all use of androids is relegated to a single walled city called Zone 414. Veidt's daughter has disappeared into the zone.

David is provided with one clue -- connect with Veidt's other "daughter", his best designed android Jane (Matilda Anna Ingrid Lutz, Revenge). Well, at least they didn't call her Eve. Jane is considered unique among androids because the feelings she portrays are real feelings, and let's just say that being used as a sex slave is not doing her emotional state well. Meanwhile, she is also being stalked by someone who is killing other androids. Considering they are not people, no one cares if someone pays to stalk and kill an android, as it may just be their kink. But David agrees to find her stalker in return for assistance in finding Veidt's daughter, as the two were friends.

As a noir thriller, the movie is serviceable; Pearce is always up for being gritty, grumpy and tortured. But as an exploration of created life becoming real life it is weak. Really, the movie was more about the kink and shame, but didn't really take one side or the other, despite realizing Jane's Pinocchio goal of becoming a real girl and leaving the zone. Perhaps it was Baird's Irish background, but the shame with which the androids were used seemed entirely out of place in today's world, let alone in a future where near-indistinguishable-from-humans robots could exist. And of course, there was that establishment of ... fear.

That fear is at the terminators-are-coming-to-get-you core of Mother/Android.

In this world, the strongly-in-the-uncanny-valley humanoid androids have an almost mundane place in everyone's lives. Even the most middle classed folks have a butler or maid bot that takes care of the household chores. There is no exploration of the why's or how's, just "here is the world we are about to end" in a brief setup that is more about the mother side of the story, as Georgia (Chloë Grace Moretz, Shadow in the Cloud) finds out she is pregnant, just as she is about to breakup with her boyfriend Sam (Algee Smith, The Hate U Give), which is further interrupted by the robot apocalypse. Nine months later, they are still alive and still on the run.

I saw what they were trying to do with this movie. Instead of being purely redundant robot on human hunting and killing action, they put the relationship of the emerging family at the core. A young woman who wasn't sure about motherhood nor her partner is now tasked with protecting what she has left. A young man who was about to be cut loose feels he has to prove to the woman he loves that he will stick around, that he will protect them. Georgia and Sam are trying to reach Boston, a last human hold out on the East Coast where they can have the baby, and possibly catch a ship to North Korea, where the android apocalypse never happened. But there are miles and miles of wilderness and killer androids in between.

But, I didn't really buy in. It was just too sub-par on all fronts to enthrall; neither the android backstory, which is barely hinted at, leaving them a mysterious foe with no motivation beyond Kill All Humans, nor on the relationship between the two expectant parents. Sure, the acting was decent enough, but I wanted to see more desperation, frustration, utter panic from them considering what they were going up against. I was left feeling flat.

And speaking of Boston Robotics and their dog robots, I would have liked to have seen more non-humanoid killer robots in this movie, as I imagine the industry would have expanded far beyond personal home care.

For example...

Interestingly enough, both of these directors came from the "new faces" camp, but not really, as both have been producing content or working in the industry for quite some time. But directorial, most previous content was shorts or music videos or deep indie features. Here's hoping that the Netflix/Amazon/Hulu/AppleTV/HBO Max/etc. streaming mega-industry becomes the new place to allow new talent to emerge and learn, and isn't just using these projects to fill in the inevitable gap left by a couple of years of pandemic shrinkage which was already following on the coattails of a flagging theatre release world.