Over the years, movies have told stories about robots in a variety of genres and formats. These include sci-fi action films about war with humanity, melodramatic love stories, and post-apocalyptic survival thrillers.
Ich bin dein Mensch, 2021
Country: Germany
Genres: Fantastic, Melodrama, Comedy
Each of us at least once dreamed of the perfect partner – that he would be intelligent, and beautiful, and understanding. Alma, a researcher at the University of Pergamon in Berlin, thinks about the same thing, though she has no life partner at all. By the will of fate, she becomes a participant in a unique experiment: within three weeks, Alma is to test an innovative android designed specifically for her. According to the scientists’ idea, such androids are supposed to become soulmates for lonely people of the planet.
“I was made for you” is the fourth feature film by actress and director Maria Schrader, presented in the main competition of the Berlin festival in 2021. The German precision and pedantry here combine seamlessly with the emotional swings of a lonely man who doesn’t quite know where he’s going in life.
Archive, 2020
Country: USA, UK, Hungary
Genres: Sci-fi, Drama
Artificial Intelligence (AI) – the solution to our problems or the path to ruin? This question has been perturbed the minds of filmmakers for decades. In Gavin Rothery’s film, young cybernetic scientist George, played by Theo James (“Tablets of Fate,” “Downton Abbey”), prepares to discover a possible answer.
George is working on artificial intelligence in a laboratory lost somewhere in the backwoods of Japan. Taking advantage of the remoteness from civilization and control, in parallel, the hero is engaged in a project for personal purposes. He wants to create an intelligent android and upload into it the consciousness of his dead wife.
Robot Riot, 2020.
Country: USA
Genres: Sci-fi, Action
The relationship between humans and robots were in the movies and TV series of various stages – from harmonious coexistence to irreconcilable confrontation. Ryan Staples Scott’s film is an example of the latter. At the beginning of the film, the American soldiers wake up in the middle of the range, and they have no weapons and do not remember how they got here. Pretty soon they will have to engage in combat with out-of-control robots controlled by artificial intelligence.
“Rise of the Robots” is a sci-fi action movie set in a world of the conditional future where humanity is on the brink of extinction. The planet’s resources are depleted, the population is dwindling. And in this environment, mad scientists and authorities decide to rely on robots, and train their fighting qualities on humans.
I Am Mother, 2019
Country: Australia
Genres: Horror, Sci-Fi, Thrillers, Dramas
In the world of the film Robot Child, humanity is almost extinct again. Those who have the opportunity try to hide in bunkers, and the upbringing of the few children is entrusted to androids. Young actress Clara Rugor plays a little girl raised entirely by the robotic humanoid “Mother.” She grows up and develops according to a preset upbringing program prescribed by the robot. The girl has never met another human being until now.
Alita: Battle Angel, 2019
Country: USA, Canada, Argentina
Genres: Fantastic, Action, Thrillers
A gripping post-apocalyptic thriller with Robert Rodriguez’s signature directorial handwriting. After getting the script and carte blanche from Steven Spielberg, the director of “Machete” and “Sin City” decided to adapt the popular American manga. The events of “Alita” are set on a mythical future Earth – in the 26th century, 300 years after the Great War. Who, for what and with whom fought – no one can no longer remember, but the world after this catastrophe has changed beyond recognition.
The segregation of rich and poor has reached an unprecedented scale. The elite live in the Flying City, while the rest survive in the Lower World, amidst crime and ecological crisis. One day in the city dump, Dr. Ido, played by Christoph Waltz, finds the remains of a female cyborg. The doctor manages to revive the robot: it turns out to be Alita, a combat android with a completely erased memory.
Zoe, 2018
Country: USA
Genres: Sci-fi, Melodrama
Back to the world of melodramatic sci-fi. Director Drake Dorimus (“Equals,” “Love for Three”) told the story of two scientists, Zoe and Cole, starring Lea Seydoux and Ewan McGregor. Is a world without lonely people a utopia or a very realistic future? Heroes scientists hope to eradicate such a concept as unrequited love, and invented synthetics – the perfect romantic robot partners.
Meanwhile, Zoe feels like she’s falling in love with Cole. Alas, tests show that the two coworkers have 0% compatibility. But that’s not the most frightening discovery: one day Zoe discovers that she herself is a synthetic. Other androids realize that they are programmed, and only for Seydoux’s heroine all feelings are real, like a human. What will the artificial intelligence do when it realizes it has been rejected?