Subservience is an American sci-fi thriller starring Megan Fox as the Artificial Intelligence (AI) domestic helper working for a struggling family.
The story revolves around a world where AI is so well developed that it started to take over humans’ jobs. People have mixed feelings for AI. On the one hand, people hate AI for replacing them in the workplace, making families struggle to support themselves. On the other hand, people rely on AI to make their daily lives more convenient.
This is not an innovative theme for sci-fi movies about AI, but since everyone is talking about how fast ChatGPT is learning and how capable it is, this may be a good time to bring this up again. However, this doesn’t cancel out the fact that the movie’s content is predictable.
When I watch a movie, I will put it into one of three categories: worth watching again and again, worth a watch, and wasting my time. For Subservience, I’d say it barely falls into the “worth a watch” category, if you are looking for some cheap thrill.
The plot of the film seems like a B-rated movie from 15 to 20 years ago.
(Spoiler alert!)
It can be summarised as:
Look! Here is a sexy AI played by Megan Fox.
And now… she is obsessed with a man.
Oh no! She goes crazy.
Love wins.
… Or does it?
Megan Fox is the biggest (and arguably the only) selling point of the film. Her appearance and acting are very convincing, which brings the audience into the story right from the beginning. The plot of the crazy AI massacre should be the “thrilling” part of the thriller, but it only occupies one-third of the film. Apart from this part of the story, the film tries to use Megan Fox’s sexiness to keep the audience engaged when things are less intense.
In the film, the discussion of AI’s emotions and the conflicts between the benefits of humans and those of AI remain on the surface. The motives behind the AI’s action are a bit too straightforward, albeit within logic. Although Subservience is about AI, I feel like Alien: Romulus (in which AI is just one of the elements of the story) has explored the theme to a deeper level than this film.
Subservience
On digital from 27 September
106 minutes
Readers also enjoyed our story about LIMBO – The Return Premiere at The West End Electric
