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Short filmTranscript
00:00Now we review the 2024 science fiction horror film, Afraid.
00:08Alright, ladies and gentlemen, this is my second time trying to film a review for Afraid.
00:16As you can hear by that thump, the universe still doesn't really want me to film this review, but I must power on.
00:24Last time I was yawning too much.
00:26Anyway, Afraid is the story of an Asian-American family that gets a testbed for Alexa on steroids, which is called Aya.
00:38And Aya is supposedly a supercomputer that can run your life, make your decisions for you, make miracles happen, order food for you.
00:49Basically, Alexa only, you know, manipulates people and does weird things.
00:56So, before I go any further, let me remind you that for 5,000 subscribers, I got a new purchase of one of these bracelets from 4ocean.
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01:11Now, look, the most renowned AI movie in history is 2001 A Space Odyssey, okay?
01:252001 A Space Odyssey is basically what this film is inspired by, okay?
01:35You've got your AI. It talks in its kind of silly voice. It's got these little eyeball things that are all around your house.
01:44And, like modern AI, it can make fake videos that people are too dumb to know are fake.
01:52Never believe what you see in a video anymore. Believe what you see with your eyes.
01:57Anyway, so this family played by, the father is John Woo, who played Sulu in the newer Star Trek films.
02:08He's no George Takei, but he is a fine actor.
02:11And, you know, so he is this father who is skeptical of AI to begin with.
02:17He works for a tech company. He has weird dreams.
02:21He sees weird people in RVs. And, you know, he knows this is not going to end well.
02:29He knows he's in this movie. He knows that this movie is not going to end well for him because movie!
02:37This would have been a much more interesting story if he were just paranoid and there was nothing wrong with the computer.
02:47But the computer does its cliche thing until the final major twist of the movie, at which point it goes weird and stupid and it breaks the movie.
02:59The ending of this movie is creepy and disturbing, but it is not a sequitur to the story that happens.
03:12Like, okay, you know, I'm getting some Skynet vibes here, but what's going on?
03:20And look, one of the things that you have to understand about this movie is that it never gels.
03:29It never makes you care about these characters enough so that you're invested in what happens to them.
03:38I mean, you've got the dad, the mom, and I think two children, a girl and a boy.
03:47And it's just, okay, you know, they're people and you don't want them to get hurt.
03:51But, you know, this is the same thing that happened in that bad remake to child's play where it's like, okay, the system has become protective of the humans.
04:02It's a glitch, but it doesn't understand that hurting people is not what you're supposed to do when you protect people.
04:10It does not have the three laws of robotics via Asimov where, you know, you may not harm a human or through nature of inaction permit humans to come to harm.
04:24That law is always going to be a difficult law because what does through nature of inaction mean?
04:29What if you have a human who harms other humans? How do you prevent that human from harming other humans?
04:35It's always that dynamic that's very questionable, although that doesn't happen in this particular film because that law does not apply and I don't even know why I'm talking about it.
04:46So, there are some elements that are creepy to this film, but ultimately it is just your run-of-the-mill PG-13 horror schlockfest.
04:58It's nothing new. It's nothing cool. It's nothing you really want to see. You're left with a sense of, meh, that was a movie.
05:06It almost felt like it was a made-for-TV movie. It didn't have the power of regular films.
05:13But, I mean, there were scenes in this film where I was going, hey, why aren't these people blinking?
05:20Maybe their lack of blinking is telling me, no, no, no, no.
05:25These weirdos, I mean, if this were Invasion of the Body Snatchers, you know, it's like, that was a legitimate fear at the time.
05:36Who's a communist? Who's been recruited by the Communist Party? Who's a spy? Can you trust your friends? Can you trust other people?
05:44That was kind of an element in this. Who can you trust?
05:49But, you know, it's one of those things, it's like, yes, okay, the stupid machine can manipulate people.
05:58But its manipulation of people is rather straightforward.
06:02It's the way, you know, Yakuza would intimidate people, not the way a machine would manipulate people.
06:09And there are much better films based on people who are narcissists and who manipulate other people, you know.
06:15So that's just this thing about this movie.
06:18It's a lot of concepts that, they're good concepts, they're solid ideas, but there are too many of them.
06:24And it just never becomes a cohesive story.
06:27Also, the creepy masks, the creepy digital masks in this movie are incredibly good if they were a more insane movie.
06:38But they are a standout piece in a movie where they don't really fit.
06:44I mean, where did they come from? Why are they here?
06:47You have this moment where it's like, okay, are these people wearing the masks?
06:53Or are they machines of some kind?
06:56But the story never does anything with that.
06:59So yeah, okay, you know, Afraid, it belongs at the bottom of your watch list.
07:04It's just not a very good film.
07:07But that's just my opinion. I'd love to hear yours. Comment below.
07:10I, of course, am Richard.
07:12Greetings, humanity. Once again, Fred the Facehugger here, reminding you to comment, like, and subscribe.
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07:51Or, um, yeah, I could fulfill my life cycle and hug your face.
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08:01I want to give you a hug right now.
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