Archive

<<

Now Playing

>>

For this week, I thought I'd tackle 'Archive' based on a few reasons. For starters, I find these "uncanny valley" movies pretty interesting, especially when it comes down to a plot about what it means to be "alive" or "human". Aside from that, it comes to us from directorial newcomer, Gavin Rothery, and it fascinates me to check out newcomer material, as we don't know what to expect yet. Lastly, it was honestly just more appealing than a lot of the other titles released last week.

I'm a little sad to report that there's not a whole lot of "new" to this movie, and it kinda takes several other titles and mashes them together for its plot. However, with the fact that this is a directorial debut, I do feel the need to be easy on my criticisms. Considering that fact, this whole idea was probably a good place for him to start. To contrast the sad report of "not much new", I can at least give a happy report that I feel like this director has a good chance at making something really awesome. Like, Christopher Nolan awesome. He just has a bit of a ways to go.

As the film opens, we see our lonely lead, George Almore (Theo James) heading into a cold-looking concrete bunker; a decommissioned base, hidden within a snowy forest in Japan. Upon his return, we are introduced to two robots that George built for the company he works for, J1 - a big, clunky work robot, and J2 - a more advanced robot who appears to have feelings.

His comfort away from work is accessing the "Archive"; a program allowing the living to speak to the dead for a while after their initial death, to talk to his recently deceased wife, Jules. As he races against the clock, before she fades away forever, George's third prototype may be his best shot at preserving his wife. This leads to J2 getting a jealous streak, and the company he works for breathing down his neck for uncertain practices. However, if he's successful, he may change what the Archive could mean, forever.

With all that said, one of the better parts of this movie is a twist ending that I didn't see coming - probably the highlight of the whole movie. Otherwise, it's pretty formulaic as we see hints of 'Moon' and 'Ex-Machina' here, along with just about any other sci-fi movie you can think of involving one lone human and some kind of artificial intelligence. That's very fitting for debuting director Gavin Rothery, who once worked on the set of 'Moon' as an effects artist. While it follows a lot of similar concepts to other films, for a first, it really isn't bad.

I can't say anything about this movie necessarily bothered me, with the exception of J2's design looking kinda weird (imagine something like 'Robocop's ED-209, but replace the gun arms with almost normal human arms). That's really just a nitpick on my part. The only other thing I'd say about it is that it's pretty slow-moving, and Theo James doesn't give the most engaging performance to keep you routing for his character. It's not quite as slow as 'Space Odyssey' (that's right, I said it), but I'd even go so far as to say your average 'Star Trek' episode might be a little more entertaining.

There's not a lot of "what is life" stuff to it, as would usually be the case. It's a bit more about a man's desperation to keep his wife around as long as possible. By the end of it all, despite a pretty awesome twist, it ends up just being a sad tale. However, this was Gavin Rothery's first time, so I'm not gonna hold anything against him. Actually, for a first-time, it's really good. But what I keep coming back to is, if Spielberg did this, I can't help but feel I'd be a little more disappointed. That said, I meet this one in the middle. It's a little slow, a little redundant, but it's perfectly passable for a first-timer - one who I hope continues down that path, because there's a lot of potential there.

3/5

---