Zoe (2018) Reviews

• A thinking mans movie...

  ndjs2018-07-25

  The slow pacing will turn off many, but the story and implications of the subject matter fascinated me so much that I watched it a second time, this time through the eyes of knowing what was going to happen.

• One of the best dramatic movies about AI

  infreferatai2018-07-26

  If you liked such movies as "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" (2001), "Bicentennial Man" (1999), "Her" (2013) - you will love this movie too! Exciting, beautiful, romantic, it seems that about future which is near or maybe already here.

• Nicely done but derivative.

  cuthbabes2018-08-19

  I enjoyed this film in its own right. The actors did a great job, however I don't think it really presented much new. Kind of like a 'best of' album. If you're into SF and AI you've probably seen everything before, if not it's an introduction to the themes. The concept of synthetics in this was pretty much identical to that presented in Humans, and I thought the film overall could have been a two hour 'special episode' of Humans, set in the same world but with an independent storyline. Indeed, as with Humans, apart from the Synthetics, everything else about the world of Zoe seemed pretty much like the present day. Again like Humans, part of the plot centred around the synth brothel. In terms of plot I felt some incongruousness here. Elsewhere in the story other synths are presented as fairly primitive while Zoe and Ash are the next generation research models, however the synth sex workers didn't seem far off Zoe and Ash in capability- it was not apparent that such high level synths also existed in other functions in society, apart from the research models. One major plot point, implanted memories, was taken directly from Bladerunner, as was the idea of the synthetic not knowing that was what she was until the implanted memories were explained. Of course the human/synth relationship could also be considered to be from Bladerunner, or from many other prior works. The distressed animal in the questionnaire may also have been a nod to Bladerunner. It was interesting to note that the credits listed Ridley Scott as an executive producer. The dating agency side of things I thought had a nod to a Black Mirror episode- done very differently, but still giving a probability of compatibility. While I could accept the idea of a romantic relationship between human and a sentient synth, I did feel uneasy about this one, between creator and creation it felt inappropriate on two levels- firstly the creator would have known how the creation worked, what implanted memories, etc. and the creation had only a few months to achieve emotional independence, resulting in a very imbalanced level of control in the relationship; secondly as creator/creation it was almost a father/daughter incestuous relationship- had it been anyone else in a relationship with Zoe it would have been fine.

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• Deserves so much better than its current rating

  sarah_fonseca2018-08-03

  First review. Had to make an account to say this. The movie is really beautiful and raises a lot of questions I really had never thought about before. I went through a series of different emotions during this film and I thought it was really great. Performances were strong, the movie itself is beautifully shot... I might watch it again.

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• Mediocre Doremus movie

  jarkkojuusela2018-09-12

  I kind of get that many here likes this, but on the other hand I don't. I didn't feel the romance between McGregor and Seydoux at all (in other Doremus' movies it has been the opposite). Also the scifi / AI aspect didn't offer anything we haven't seen in the past years and many of those other movies have done it with deeper results. Of course everyone has their own opinion, but I can't say with straight face that this one could compete with Ex Machina, Her, Westworld, Upgrade etc. on quality. Then there are the songs, ok couple of them hits the spot, but mr. Doremus has the habit to put waaaay too many on his films, and often they can even ruin the mood. Editing also hurt the eyes few times. All in all I think it's very average, I would rather watch Doremus' Equals, that made me feel at least something.

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