Reviewed - 'The Machine' (DVD)

Britain in the near future… and as the world topples over the edge of another brutal Cold War, this time with China, the race is on to use cutting-edge technology on the battlefield, but without the cost of fragile, fickle human lives.  Vincent McCarthy (Toby Stephens) specialises in developing technology that can be grafted onto (and into) severely disabled victims of war, but he is a scientist more concerned with curing his young daughter of a neurological condition that resembles severe autism. His research is funded by the government, in particular a secretive branch designed to perfect a thinking, receptive machine they can use in the conflict.

Looking for a key bridge to make his own research complete, Vincent hires Ava (Caity Lotz), a young American expert in AI, who has had some  amazing successes of her own in intuitive programming, and brings her aboard the project . But he neglects to tell her some home-truths about the application of the technology they are developing and some of the failures and compromises that have been needed so far. Snooping around the underground base, Ava witnesses some of those ‘failures’ and begins questioning her role.

On the way out of the base one night, she and Vincent are attacked by what appears to be a Chinese spy and it starts a series of events that inspires Vincent to continue the research in a new direction… and giving his machine a new ‘face’… but not to everyone’s liking.  As ‘The Machine’ finally gains awareness, various agendas and survival instincts come into play…

Those anticipating cyber shoot ‘em up may have to look elsewhere as The Machine is a moodier, more introspective piece than anticipated. The territory it examines is definitely nothing new,  but it attempts to look at the idea of artificial intelligence, man, machine and war in an assured and thoughtful way. Taking thematic elements from sources such as Blade Runner, Species, RoboCop, Splice and Universal Soldier, it eschews the expected  that all-out action in favour of tone and ultimately feels almost like a project built for television, but with a higher budget at its disposal.

Caity Lotz is something of a discovery. Though she’s appeared in the likes of Bring it On: All or Nothing and Death Valley, she’s a relatively new face on the block and it’s in the last year that she’s made a real impression. Currently turning heads as Sara Lance / Black Canary in the Arrow series, her role as Ava  and ‘The Machine’ is more nuanced than one might expect from such a well-trod genre.  First as the fun-loving and intelligent human Ava and then as a new form of life desperately trying to understand her existence, Lotz creates rounded characters we actually care about and like. She’s also physically fit enough for the sometimes demanding role – her dancer background showing through in the same way that Summer Glau excelled in Serenity. 

The role of Vincent IS more limited in its scope, but Stephens  (currently making waves in hit tv series Black Sails) channels ‘troubled’ well  with a perpetual furrowed brow and nary a smile throughout. Perhaps the film could have done with some lighter moment flashbacks to balance out  Vincent’s continuously dour demeanour  and make us sympathise with him more, but in some ways, his character is the catalyst here rather than the hero.  

The special effects here are cautious but inventive and effective. Though we eventually get to the requisite gunfire and explosions, there’s clearly been a great deal of time taken in how to give an otherworldliness to the artificial bodies and the industrial environment around them. The stylistic robotic shell eventually covered by ‘skin’ and the glowing components  (not just eyes, but muscles within) work well and though many of these will have been added in post-production, it’s a credit to the FX department that they feel hard-grafted into the performance.

There are elements that work less well.  Deliberately ‘small’ and claustrophobic in many regards, it’s still frustrating that while some of the smaller technological elements are deliciously realised, the dystopian world in which The Machine takes place is fairly sketchily and formulaically drawn. The film fills out some of its running time  (a compact and bijou 88 minutes) with some to’ing and fro’ing for Vincent to visit his ill daughter and though it’s an important part of the plot, the scenes often break the momentum of the piece and could have been better spent opening out the world beyond the initial, opening  exposition).  It’s a film where the foreground is in sharper focus, but background elements remain vague.

Equally, Denis Law’s script must have titled his character ‘nefarious bad guy’ because it’s a role that simply requires him to be the defacto untrustworthy governmental type, one step away from glancing into camera and twirling his triple-memo’d moustache – the kind of despicable character who’s bad because the script says so. 

All in all, The Machine is a film that tries to work something independently-themed into a familiar mainstream formula, offering a bit more for the brain and heart to hang on than usual. It doesn’t have the budget or quite the right size canvas to achieve the gravitas it wants nor the ground-breaking moments of its spiritual forefather Blade Runner…but it DOES feel as if its cast and crew are genuinely wanting to do much more than merely provide the next Universal Soldier rip-off. Produced in the Eighties or Nineties, this would have been a film that was ALL about the action with the ethical dilemmas transfused on later, but now the reverse is true… the action scenes are there as punctuation, not narrative and that doesn’t hurt it at all. 

Beneath an unforgivably bland title, this is an interesting addition to the genre that puts the ‘AI’ in ‘ideas’ and offers some good eprformances. The film is well-intentioned with mixed results and if it slightly stumbles in some departments then it ably takes off in others and is worth checking out for that sense of ambition alone.

The Machine (15) is released by Anchor Bay on the 31st March.