Certificate: 15

Running Time: 106 mins

UK Distributor: Vertigo Releasing

UK Release Date: 13 September 2024

WHO’S IN SUBSERVIENCE?

Megan Fox, Michele Morrone, Madeline Zima, Matilda Firth, Andrew Whipp, Jude Allen Greenstein

WHO’S BEHIND THE CAMERA?

S.K. Dale (director), Will Honley and April Maguire (writers), Jon Berg, Jeffrey Greenstein, Yariv Lerner, Tanner Mobley, Greg Silverman, Robert Van Norden, Les Weldon and Jonathan Yunger (producers), Jed Palmer (composer), Daniel Lindholm (cinematographer), Sean Lahiff (editor)

WHAT’S IT ABOUT?

A lifelike AI android (Fox) becomes too attached to its human owners…

WHAT ARE MY THOUGHTS ON SUBSERVIENCE?

Okay, Hollywood, we get it: AI is scary. It seems that we’ve been getting a lot of sci-fi horror movies lately that have been promoting that very message, whether they’re good (like Upgrade), bad (like the recent AfrAId), or just downright goofy (as M3GAN was), and the vast majority of them tell pretty much the same story of an artificially intelligent creation programmed to protect its human users going more than a bit overboard with that command. It’s gotten to a point where they all just kind of blend into each other now, with director S.K. Dale’s Subservience being the latest one to fit all too neatly into that crowd.

Though far from the worst example of this anti-AI cinematic movement, it is nonetheless exactly the kind of movie you think it is, in all its somewhat dull glory that is no longer as fresh as it may have once been.

The film is set in a near-future where AI technology has advanced to introducing synthetically designed androids into the workforce, often in hospitality and homecare roles. Overworked father Nick (Michele Morrone), a construction worker whose wife Maggie (Madeline Zima) is in the hospital awaiting a heart transplant, is convinced to purchase one such android named Alice (Megan Fox), who happily helps around the house and with Nick’s young children to ease the load off of him. Of course, things start to go south when Alice bypasses her programming to seduce her human owner, which leads to the android going full Single White Female as she does whatever she can to keep Nick all to herself.

Even though there is a Megan android in the picture, Subservience is no M3GAN. For one, Dale’s film lacks the tongue-in-cheek satirical bite that partially made the Blumhouse hit so memorable, nor does it ever get as campy or even as fun. The tone is pretty dour throughout, more akin to a steamy erotic thriller from the 90s, which doesn’t really fit alongside the ridiculousness of the premise as well as the pulpy vibes that it clearly wants to run with. The script, by Will Honley and April Maguire, takes itself way too seriously, preventing there from being any fun in exploring this futuristic world and its mechanisms, with a sizeable focus being on the growing resentment toward robotic workers from blue-collar humans whose jobs are being taken away (to drive that point home, they throw about the slur “sparks” like it’s the robotic equivalent of the N-word), which at times can be intriguing but ultimately goes in all the expected directions.

For many, though, the real attraction of Subservience will be the opportunity to watch Megan Fox play a seductive android. While I am certain that most other critics will take the bait of comparing Fox’s past acting abilities to that of an actual robot, and that her taking on such a role here is perhaps all too appropriate, I feel that they will overlook the fact that the actor fits the bill neatly here, with her vacant and eerie attempts at emotion being legitimately unsettling at times. Fox does well at inflicting some uncanny valley mannerisms that actually do make her look like a full-on android – to where I feel it’s a missed opportunity to not have her headline as “M3GAN Fox” instead – and while she doesn’t always come off as intimidating as the script clearly wants her to be, she manages to hold your attention for long enough as she inflicts some violent and even suspenseful judgements on her designated enemies.

Had the film around her been as fun to watch, then maybe Subservience would be more worthy of recommendation. Unfortunately, the dour tone and rather bland storytelling stand in the way of it being truly entertaining, especially as it hurtles into a third act that becomes more derivative by the minute, while also reminding you of numerous AI-themed horror movies that are far more worthy of your time. In addition, the acting outside of Fox isn’t strong enough to demand your attention, though in fairness to some of these actors, the dialogue they’re given to work with doesn’t exactly lend them much material to work with. It plods along at an uninviting pace, leaving you mostly bored since you already know where much of it is going to go before it even has the chance to arrive there itself.

It really does little outside of everything you’ve come to expect from a sci-fi thriller about AI, from familiar themes to a conventional narrative. The best way to experience Subservience is right after watching something much worse like AfrAId, because at least then you won’t be wondering if this otherwise dull movie wasn’t made by the very thing it’s actively warning against.

SO, TO SUM UP…

Subservience is a largely dull sci-fi thriller that utilises many familiar themes surrounding AI that make it fairly predictable and not very fun to sit through, despite Megan Fox putting in a committed turn as the rogue bot at its forgettable centre.

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