Uncanny (2015)

Joy Andrews (Lucy Griffiths) is a reporter who is given the opportunity to spend 7 days with a robotics expert David Kressan (Mark Webber) and his creation Adam (David Clayton Rogers) whom is the most believable and realistic AI that has ever been created - he's an AI that David has lived in isolation with for the last 7 years. Things start to take a turn for the worse when Adam starts to exhibit abnormal and disturbing behaviour towards Joy when it seems that both the AI and its creator begin to develop feelings for the same woman...There are two words that sprung to mind when I was watching this film 'EX MACHINA' and it seems fairly obvious that ANDROID borrows quite heavily from this film. Both films cover the same theme of developing an AI that is capable of fooling humans and with an AI that is more self-aware than its creator imagines or believes.The problems with Android begin at a very early stage with the initial story set-up; the dialogue that is exchanged between the characters is mind-boggling and contains words that only scientists or members of MENSA are likely to be able to understand. I got the feeling that this was included at the start of the film to try and make it seem clever (which in retrospect becomes laughable when you learn of the simplistic plotting). The poor dialogue and lack of much happening in the first half makes for a fairly slow opener (although those for a penchant for Chess will be well catered for here).The second half is better if only because it has some life to it and has more going for it; there is a battle between the AI and its creator and the power struggle between the two is interesting, but whilst it is interesting it's never really a story that grips or involves (mainly because it offers nothing that we haven't seen before). It's difficult to critique performances in a film focusing on AI as naturally some performers are going to be 'cough cough' slightly robotic; this is the case for Webber and Rogers for the most part although Rogers fares best out of the two men (but in fairness this is because he is given more to work with). Griffiths is given the role of the most 'normal' person, but she works the role well giving a rather natural performance, but she's able to flex her acting chops later in the film.The end result of all this is a rather poor film with little in the way of originality or surprises and with its rather dull and dialogue-heavy first half it makes for an uneven film which sadly, for the most part, is fairly uninvolving. It's very similar to Ex Machina and even though I thought that film was overrated and had its fair share of problems I would still pick that film over this one.

Standing alongside the largely contemporaneous "Ex Machina", "Uncanny" (which confusingly appears on my DVD as "Almost Human") is Matthew Leutwyler's take on the Turing Test, in which - most likely - our ex-nerd reporter Joy (British actress Lucy Griffiths) fails so completely to distinguish between human nerd and robot nerd that she "goes all the way" with the latter.As a summary of "Uncanny" this is a bit crude, in every sense of the word, for this is a hugely nuanced film, doing a huge amount with subtle script and filming, in order to flesh out a fairly simple (and even potentially predictable) story set in absolutely-minimalist surroundings. Everything thus depends on the way the thing is done, and it must be said it is done brilliantly, generating huge tension - erotic, aggressive and otherwise - between the three main characters - the other very-persuasive stars here being Mark Webber as David and David Clayton Rogers as Adam.Considering that all three main players are essentially unknown to me, I must say they handle themselves superbly well here. And even if one knows roughly speaking where the film might be going, it is simply entrancing actually watching it go there.There is in fact a twist in the tale that leaves one wondering - again - what one might have been watching, but what the heck! Given that "Star Trek" and many other sources have touched upon similar content to what is present in "Uncanny", perhaps even developing it more fully, it is surprising how well "Uncanny" wins one over. But it certainly does, and basically that means this is just a great piece of art, founded upon the eternal triangle, but pushing that to - or even beyond - its limits.

Although well traversed, especially more so since the turn of the century, artificial intelligence and its impact on humanity remains one of the main Sci-Fi tropes. Android certainly fits into this category, well written and well acted for the most part it does however ultimately let itself down at the final hurdle, with an ending that seems more fitting of a lesser film With shadows of Ex Machina and the excellent Westworld TV series, Android tackles the concepts of human vs created awareness, with some expected and unexpected consequences. With only 4 characters on screen the script is effective and the performances are engaging Certainly worth watching and without giving anything away, expect to be stimulated cerebrally rather than adrenergically!

A pretty reporter named Joy is invited to some research facility to write about the ground-breaking research there. The facility/company is owned by Castle, who doesn't show up a whole lot. He's just monitoring from a distance.Running the facility is a stiff researcher named, what else, David. He shows Joy some of the stuff he's worked on. Mainly bionic body parts. He introduces her to his also stiff assistant named, what else, Adam of course. Dave insists Joy talk to Adam but she sees no point in it, until she learns he's AI. Now she's amazed, after all, Adam looks just like a regular guy. Joy isn't just a reporter, she was a robotics PhD student but left school before she finished, so she knows a lot about robotics and AI. Dave plays chess with Adam on a daily basis trying to teach him strategy but Adam struggles.When Joy touches Adam's hand, something awakens in him. He starts getting jealous every time he sees Dave and Joy who are getting closer and closer. He starts watching porn and one day walks into the restroom and bothers Joy. His relationship with Dave becomes more and more strained until it reaches the breaking point and at that moment there's a double revelation, which was foreshadowed by talks of Turing tests, by discussions of Siva the sleeping god of destruction, by chess games where the queen is captured. There's a bit of deception here, too.Uncanny is a thoughtful, well-made, low-budget sci-fi thriller. There only three main cast member and few different locations. Still, it works. You know that something is coming but the way it turns out isn't quite what you might expect. The closer we get to the resolution the clearer though it becomes which way things are going to go. There is a creepy implication for the revelation especially for Joy, even more so with the credits scene. I have to say though that the revelatory scene should have been filmed in a more powerful way, it's somewhat underwhelming. It would also have helped had they added some more characters and given us some more settings. Lucy Griffiths is just gorgeous though.What I found particularly thought-provoking is what would happen if AI robots were raised to think of themselves as human, a question also posed by Terminator Salvation.