Automata

Automata

“Automata” opens with a captioned explanation of the future. It’s 30 years from now; solar storms have turned Earth into a radioactive desert that kills people just by being outside. So the ROC company created “primitive robots to help build the walls and mechanical clouds that protect the humans.” More than millions of them, in fact. All are controlled by two protocols they can’t harm any form of life, and they can neither repair themselves nor alter another robot in any fasion. “These rules are unalterable,” the screen tells us, in boldface. But this is not true.

Science fiction is often allegorical by nature, so maybe it’s unfair to judge “Automata” by that standard but the movie is so deathly somber and heavy-handed (it drowns you in portentousness), I can only assume director Gabe Ibáñez wanted to tell us Something Important. What it could be, your guess is as good as mine.

The score by Zacarías M. de la Riva features choral voices singing melancholy notes while scenes one cannot take seriously flash before our eyes. The disconnect is akin to having the Harlem Boys Choir score from “Glory” playing over a Wayans Brothers movie. No movie featuring a sex robot should pretend it has the gravitas level of a Morgan Freeman narration it should at least be fun, which “Automata” most certainly isn’t.

But more on the sex android later: She’s an integral part of what passes for plot here.

“Automata” opens with Dylan McDermott discovering a robot violating Protocol 2 that it’s repairing itself when it should not be able to do so (“unalterable,” remember). So McDermott shoots this second-generation automaton in the head, which breaks its brain housing the one part of it that might explain why this particular robot has suddenly decided to “alter itself” when it should not be capable of doing so.

There’s a lot of shooting robots in this movie, and none of them even contemplates violating Protocol 1 that would be the one about harming people. But Ibáñez enjoys showing these poor low-budget inanimate objects being slowly dismembered by gunfire. Hitting their off switches would work just as well, but then “Automata” wouldn’t have any action.

The screenplay is so desperate to include as many science-fiction tropes as possible without realizing that more isn’t better it doesn’t cohere into anything that makes narrative sense. The visuals are riffs on “Blade Runner” and the “Mad Max” movies; rather than wisely evoking either, however, “Automata” is merely reminiscent of both at various times: It conjures images of post-apocalyptic rain and shadows where no sun shines (the noirish future), standing on a rooftop looking out over a ruined cityscape (the dystopian future), etc., etc., ad nauseam. Into this we drop an insurance adjuster lead us.

That adjuster is Jacq Vaucan (a bald and appropriately apocalyptic-looking Antonio Banderas). Jacq has grown weary of trudging through hazardous rainfall to deal with ROC customers who complain that their drone-fish tanks are malfunctioning or whatever. We meet him investigating a second-generation robot accused of murdering the family dog (by brushing its fur until it stopped breathing). The robot is innocent. Jacq decides he’s getting too old for this [CENSORED].

Vauchan wants to move his pregnant wife, Rachel (Birgitte Hjort Sørensen), from the brutal inner city to a beachside resort he keeps seeing in childhood flashbacks. Rachel thinks he’s crazy, and so do we once we realize the seaside is far more irradiated. Rachel exists solely to perform damsel in distress duty during the climax, where the villains drag her and her newborn baby into an extremely radioactive desert for no logical reason whatsoever.

Before that happens, ROC sends Rachel’s hubby to an expert to determine what caused the robot Wallace shot in the opening scene to gain knowledge of itself. The expert, Dr. Dupre (Melanie Griffith), is skeptical about robots having protocol violating capabilities, despite the fact that she also runs a brothel whose S&M robots kinda violate their first protocol.

“I specialize in pleasure and pain,” Cleo the sex robot tells Vauchan before she’s implanted with the other robot’s self-aware chip. She also specializes in driving getaway cars, which comes in handy when two little kids inexplicably shoot Dr. Dupre in the face.

As they head deeper into the desert to discover the “clocksmith” who’s retooling the robots minus their second protocol, Cleo becomes Vauchon’s protector. Armed members of ROC, including McDermott and a game Robert Forster, follow them with the intent to destroy both the robots and their colleague. More robots get shot, and in the film’s one true moment of excitement, somebody gets blown away with a flare gun.

Despite her newfound intelligence, Cleo’s appearance (she’s practically naked and has two large round circles that pass for a booty) and her voice (provided by Griffith) never let us forget her original function. She may be able to repair herself and is smart enough to help build a highly intelligent giant robotic cockroach, but she’s still reduced to moaning hilariously when sensing male arousal. You’ll be sinking in your seat as a drunk Vauchan contemplates Cleo’s services. At least the sad choir is wise enough not to sing over this sequence.

About that giant, super-evolved robotic cucaracha: I think it may hold the key to “Automata”’s allegory. If nothing else, it’s where all roads lead. Armed with that detail, you now know if you want to sit through this film. Personally, if I was you, I’d bypass it for a double feature of “Cherry 2000” and “Runaway.” You’ll get your fill of sex robots and killer robot roaches, with none of the dreary seriousness and overstuffed plot of “Automata”. The quality will be about the same.

Watch Automata For Free On Gomovies.