Movie Review: Automata (2014)

Last night I watched a movie called “Automata”, it was a bit long movie as I cooked in between, enjoyed some fresh season mangoes (You should not miss it specially if you are in Maharashtra). Let us talk about the movie now.

It starts with a scene where a robot is repairing itself, (I wish my vehicle could do that, the leg guard is still bent), A policeman finds about that and shoots it, why because it is not allowed in the new world.

Robots are created to create a wall (It’s not Mexico wall brother, trust me) to keep the deserts away from civilization (What is left of it after a lot of things went wrong, some seas evaporated and sun radiation is hot as shit [language]. you can picture it in your mind, its apocalypse – the real one. Don’t start beating your thali).

The robots are programmed to follow two rules – 1. protect humans, 2. do not modify self or other robots.

Ok, enough back story. So, the robot that the policeman shot is brought to the manufacturer’s lab and they find that the program was altered. And call the policeman a mad man because it is not possible for a robot to repair/modify itself. Manufacturer closes the file, blaming policeman. Insurance guys tell the Hero (His name is Jack, I forgot the fact that we need to introduce him before starting to write the article) that find someone who is behind it and close the file. So typical.

I wonder what insurance guys are doing in post apocalypse world, Has this field that much potential? Should I switch to insurance, I am sure programmers are not needed where robots are repairing themselves. Oh I got distracted again.

The investigation begins, Jack goes to the wall to tell them that the robot was working there, who the hell altered it and made my life hell as I have to walk to the wall. The guy there tells him nobody cares to touch the robots. they are just workers here. As they were talking, a welding robot looks suspicious, the insurance guy follows it. It goes beyond the wall, and light itself with fire – in front of the Jack.

Jack was shocked, It brought the robot to the lab. They again did the same routine – the robots cannot change itself , blah blah blah.

The insurance Jack is now shit scared about it, He knows something and cannot tell anyone, as no one would believe him. He lives in an apartment, has a wife who is pregnant, life is good. He tells his wife that they should move to another place, maybe some costal area (He wants to go to Konkan guys) as the city is too polluted, His wife says that they are living a good life here why we should move? Now as you know, I know and Jack knows that the robots are going nuts, he does not tell his wife about it. She does not get a clue till the climax.

Now Insurance jack is working with that same policeman to find who is that “hacker” that is altering the robots. The policeman takes him to a brothel (Why this movie plot is getting familiar, it is becoming more and more Bollywood movie). But here the pleasure lady is not human, its a robot. Insurance jack confronts her, who altered you, are you behind all these and all, but the policeman is smart and he just shoots the lady robot at its legs (Trust me guys it is Hollywood movie).

They wait outside the pleasure house in a car, to find out where this robot will be taken for repair. They follow the vehicle and find out that there is a lady scientist who has a lab, and do some science stuff on the robot. Insurance Jack leaves his card to the lady, and also gives her the responsibility to investigate further why all this is happening and how.

Jack comes to the office and asks for a transfer of job to some remote city, His manager tells him to shut up and keep working here. Now the manufacturing people finds out that the Insurance jack has given the investigation to that lady scientist, If the truth comes out, the people will panic and economy would collapse (Sorry I got distracted again, they are just manufacturing guys not the US government), correction – If people find out the company stock price will be crashed (What? there is no stock market? But there is an insurance guy!)

final correction – If people will find out, something bad will happen. Catch him before he do any more damage.

So the science lady sends him a fax that she found something, Jack goes to the lab and finds that the science lady has uploaded the bio kernel from the vogue robots into it and it has started repairing itself, it started thinking like humans, or even better than humans.

At the same time, they get attacked and the science lady dies (Her contract with the movie maker ends here).

The insurance jack is saved by the robot in typical Bollywood style car chase, the attacker shooting them from running car, missing every single bullet. Finally they crash into an empty place. the attackers were also crashed into a big stone and neutralized. Now insurance Jack, comes back to conscience after several hours. He has no idea, where he is, which way is city and complete stranded with four robots. these robots can think and all are moving away from the city towards an unknown destination. They want the insurance Jack to come with them as it is not safe to go to city.

Insurance guy runs from there but soon faints and fall down. Next scene they were dragging a car seat, having the insurance Jack sitting on it and still moving towards the destination. Meanwhile, in the city, the insurance Jack’s wife is giving birth. She was taken to the hospital, initially the hospital guys did not cooperate because their manufacturer has revoked the health insurance as his husband was a traitor, she does not know it yet. (Take notes guys, buy a second health insurance for self and family, do not rely on the company). The manufacturer later clears the insurance and she gives birth to a beautiful baby girl. But both the mom and kid was kidnapped (by the manufacturer).

The insurance Jack, somehow finds a pager and sends out his location. The mad policeman was sent to retrieve him back, but in turn, the policeman shoots one of the robot and also tries to shoot insurance Jack. But insurance Jack shoots the policeman and the other policeman runs from the scene in the car they came in. Now the insurance Jack is again with the robots, having no means to go back to the city, completely hopeless.

After some time, they reach to an abandoned site where nuclear radiation level was high but bearable, where a robot was waiting for them, Jack was hoping He would find another man who is behind all this madness. It turns out to be the first robot that the humans created with artificial intelligence and had no such protocols as mentioned before. It was pure AI ( Chat GPT guys – take some hints), it was special. At some point in time, it escaped the lab and started playing with other robots and these robots would start thinking like a living being.

The robots were emphatical towards Jack and they give him a car so that he can go back to his wife in city. He thanks the robots and bids goodbye. Once they robots would cross the dried river crater, the humans would not follow them as that was the nuclear zone with super high radio activeness.

Now the manufacturer’s goons follow Jack to the facility, robots tells them He is not here, they shoot down some robots. Hero enters, rams his vehicle into one guy, shoots another guy with a shotgun, third guy was thrown into the dried river by a robot from a high place. All this action, happening while his wife was also there, holding the baby. Once the fight ends, the pleasure lady robot, who is now a more mature thinking robot, touches the baby’s fingers and feels something.

The movie ends where the wife is driving into a place and find out that there is an actual sea on the earth. Some place where there is no pollution and their kid can live peacefully. The insurance Jack might die, I don’t know. Because there is no doctor at the sea I assume.

So the robots has their own place now, where humans wont go. The Jack’s family enjoying at beach and all the city people are still in city, living a hell’s life, robots are still making a wall (to put the poor people away from the rich people), and I still have to go to my office daily, facing Mumbai traffic.

The movie was satisfying or the mangoes were, I am not sure. But I enjoyed the movie, learnt a few things. Why this article is this big ? It was supposed to be a movie review right not the whole summary? – because it is Sunday and I have nothing else to do.

Hope you’ve enjoyed it, until the next one, bye bye.