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The Machine

Play trailer Poster for The Machine R 2014 1h 31m Sci-Fi Mystery & Thriller Play Trailer Watchlist
Watchlist Tomatometer Popcornmeter
79% Tomatometer 33 Reviews 46% Popcornmeter 10,000+ Ratings
Two scientists fall in love while they are creating the world's first self-aware artificial intelligence. The work goes terribly wrong when the British military steals their technology to make a robotic weapon.
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The Machine

The Machine

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Critics Consensus

The Machine proves an audacious debut for writer-director Caradog James and a solid entry in modern British sci-fi, with thematic heft to match its genre thrills.

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Critics Reviews

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Kate Muir The Times (UK) 01/02/2018
The result is a tad predictable. Go to Full Review
Robert Abele Los Angeles Times 04/24/2014
"The Machine" percolates with an elegantly palpable sense of wonder and danger. Go to Full Review
Dennis Harvey Variety 04/23/2014
"The Machine" works modestly well, but still wobbles trying to balance its "thinking man's sci-fi" aspirations against the need to placate less adventurous fans via standard action content. Go to Full Review
Nicholas Bell IONCINEMA.com 08/30/2019
3/5
The Machine is a highly enjoyable and brooding sci-fi flick in the philosophical vein of Blade Runner, with a smattering of other similarly minded or styled classics. Go to Full Review
Cleaver Patterson CineVue 03/08/2019
4/5
Here, the actions and objectives of the government manufactured robots are as volatile and unpredictable as those of the scientists and officials who create them, resulting in scenarios which are as shocking as they're unexpected. Go to Full Review
Frank Ochieng SF Crowsnest 11/11/2018
2.5/4
Thankfully, the film generates its brand of suspense courtesy of smart and intriguing performances contained in a compartmentalized caper Go to Full Review
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Audience Reviews

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Cristian s @cristiansj Jan 9 Entretenida, la típica película donde crean una ia que se revela (debería sonar como advertencia ya a esta altura). See more Korra N @RT88131552 Jul 13 A fun, well-acted & convincingly staged sci-fi thriller about the uncertainty of AI, with some pretty cool action, effects & direction. See more Brian E @RT65592830 03/22/2025 What has happened to writing? I watched maybe 45 minutes of this disaster, before feeling as though my intelligence had suffered through sufficient insult. As I see it, one of the keys to writing believable science fiction is immersion through suspension of disbelief. If we, the viewers, are presented with characters who are supposed to be highly intelligent, then those characters must make intelligent decisions. If they consistently fail to, then it is impossible to remain immersed within the story. Take the first scene, as one example (spoilers ahead, but do yourself a favour and consider this a PSA). A soldier, bone thin for some reason, who has suffered a traumatic battlefield injury has been implanted with a neural chip (brain implant they call it). The chip is supposed to restore brain function, at least to an extent. The brilliant scientist activates the chip and the soldier wakes from his catatonic state. The soldier is clearly confused and in great distress, but after a few questions the lead scientist turns his back to the 'patient' and declares the technology a dead end. In doing so, he places a scalpel obviously within reach of the traumatised, confused, unstable and distressed soldier he's just resuscitated from the living death of his injury. To be clear, the soldier is not even restrained. He's just sitting there before a deadly weapon, while the scientist who just dismissed the technology enabling him to speak once more, is sitting inches away from him, his back turned. Guess what happened next? You guessed it, a gruesome bloodbath. Most of us will not have needed to be told what came next because it is unbelievably obvious. You'd have to be an idiot not to realise what the writer is setting up. Our genius scientist turns his back on his unstable, unrestrained patient after providing him with a deadly weapon, conveniently placed a few inches in front of the soldier's hands. There are no guards nearby, despite the fact that this is obviously a military facility. No kill switch, which could turn off the implant with a single, safer press of a button... nothing. Not a single precaution. And we're supposed to believe this man a genius, an expert on artificial intelligence? The rest of the movie is filled with similar, oh great that'll move the plot forward nonsense, which no intelligent person would believe. I'm not exaggerating. Almost every scene I suffered through had similar immersion breaking elements - and that combined with appalling acting and perishingly thin character work led me to bail before the first painful hour had gone by. Avoid. See more Tim O @RT56534900 12/18/2023 Watched this and 2015's 'Uncanny' back to back: Neither one held up as particularly memorable or likely to stick around for future rewatches... See more Joe W @JoeWasik 10/21/2023 Maybe worth watching. Maybe not. Movie is a bit like the much better Ex Machina. Here characters are shallow and and behave so very inconsistently in order for the plot to work. See more Courtney K @c0urtn3y 07/31/2022 while i did enjoy it, i just wanted more to happen. it's a slow start, but you can tell it's building up to something bigger, which is exciting, but then when you're expecting absolute terror to reign down on everybody, 1 guy's skull gets crushed & that's it. so it was a pretty anti-climactic solution with a rather rushed ending afterwards. if you don't have anything better to do it's a decent watch, but i wouldn't go out of my way to recommend it. See more Read all reviews
The Machine

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Movie Info

Synopsis Two scientists fall in love while they are creating the world's first self-aware artificial intelligence. The work goes terribly wrong when the British military steals their technology to make a robotic weapon.
Director
Caradog W. James
Producer
John Giwa-Amu
Screenwriter
Caradog W. James
Distributor
XLrator Media
Production Co
Red & Black Films
Rating
R (Violence|Some Language)
Genre
Sci-Fi, Mystery & Thriller
Original Language
English
Release Date (Theaters)
Apr 8, 2014, Limited
Release Date (Streaming)
Mar 11, 2017
Runtime
1h 31m
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