Gotta Get More Data

Going through the doldrums of Summer it can be hard to find stuff to watch (and then write about). This is compounded by COVID which knocked Hollywood on its butt (like it did everyone else) and left the rest of us with a lot less to watch now that we're mid-way into 2021 and the backlog of projects from the studios is really starting to run dry. I've been watching a lot of stuff on streaming services, looking for anything halfway interesting that could provide a couple of hours of entertainment, and having already burned through everyone interesting NetflixOriginally started as a disc-by-mail service, Netflix has grown to be one of the largest media companies in the world (and one of the most valued internet companies as well). With a constant slate of new internet streaming-based programming that updates all the time, Netflix has redefined what it means to watch TV and films (as well as how to do it). and HBO Max, I've resorted to Amazon PrimeWhile Netflix might be the largest streaming seervice right now, other major contenders have come into the game. One of the biggest, and best funded, is Amazon Prime, the streaming-service add-on packing with free delivery and all kinds of other perks Amazon gives its members. And, with the backing of its corporate parent, this streaming service very well could become the market leader..

I've noted before that Netflix really doesn't have a great selection of movies. They have a lot of them but most of them are utter garbage (maybe two steps above the dreck over on Tubi), but what Netflix has on offer is generally miles better than what Amazon Prime is able to provide. I mean, yes, I can watch just about anything on Prime if I'm willing to pay for it, but their free library (which, since I'm paying for Prime isn't really free) sucks. It's a lot of stuff that even Netflix didn't want to touch, which tells you something about the quality. Still, occasionally something good comes out and the streaming service provides at least a modicum on interesting entertainment. You have to dig for it but you do occasionally find a decent gem (or at the very least and halfway watchable crystal, to extend that metaphor).

That's how I stumbled upon Archive, an independent sci-fi film that was supposed to have a decent release in 2020 but, due to COVID, instead was dumped onto the bare minimum number of screens and then ditched on the streaming service. I don't think this film would have been a big hit -- it is a very low-budget sci-fi film -- but I could have seen it becoming something of a sleeper at the theaters, like Ex Machina back in 2014. I don't think it's as good (or as mind-fuckingly weird) as that 2014 sci-fi indie but there's a certain charm to Archive that can't be denied.

The film is focused on George Almore (Theo James), a roboticist living on his own in the middle of the Japanese wilderness. The company he works for put him on a three year contract right before he ended up in a car wreck with his wife, Jules (Stacy Martin). She died in the wreck and, ever since, George was been talking to the downloaded spirit of his wife that lives in the Archive, a giant black box that he keeps in the residential section of the lab he lives at. Being a roboticist, though, George has been trying to find a way to bring Jules back, but only to limited success. His first version, J1, is a hulking robot that has intelligence barely above a small child, while J2 is a more sophisticated, but still not human looking, robot that acts much more like a jealous teenager.

The company isn't pleased with his work, largely because he only ever shows them (via teleconference) J1 and doesn't let the machine communicate. J2 is kept hidden because he fears what the company would do to it if they got their hands on the robot. What they'd really want, though, is J3, a much more sophisticated robot that seems almost human. If George can get this robot working he could bring his wife, effectively, back from the dead. However, events start twisting around George that could ruin his happy existence and send him reeling in the process.

There are two aspects of Archive that are worth discussing: the practical production values of the film and then the story itself. On the surface level, Archive is quite interesting. Despite its low budget it's not often that the limitations of the production make the film fee cheap. In large part this is because the film is kept almost entirely to a single set, the lab and surrounding rooms that George calls home, so those sets were built out to feel really lush. There's a lived in quality to the setting that keeps it from feels sterile despite the fact that George lives and breathes in his robotics lab.

The same can be said for the robots, too. Each of them are well crafted and animated, with each having a performer inside them to make them movie around in a realistic manner. Its impressive how they built everything such that despite there clearly being performers in these bots you don't think of them as anything other than life-like robots. The suits really do look that good, and the acting (and voice work) for the machines helps to truly sell that conceit. This is a movie that crafts its world really well and never betrays the "reality" of the movie.

The story, however, can't quite stop itself from giving away the game too early. Without saying too much it does become pretty clear early on (from clues and other incidental bits of story) that there is a twist lurking at the end of the film. Observant viewers can probably figure it out pretty quickly and while this twist doesn't necessarily feel like a cheat it does cause problems for the tale that keep it from being a truly great experience. We'll discuss those in the next paragraph (so be ready for spoilers ahead), but suffice it to say that I think I would have enjoyed the film more had there not been a twist at all.

So in the film (and here are the spoilers) George thinks he's talking to his dead wife when he calls her on her Archive. He's desperate to find a way to bring her back so he creates one robot after another, each more sophisticated. These robots have personalities, live lives, pine and yearn. The weird thing is that, eventually, it's revealed that his wife wasn't the one that died in the car wreck, George did. It works on a surface level because, oooh, the rug was pulled and of course George is the one that died because he's stuck, alone, in the middle of nowhere. But at the same time the reality he, apparently, made for himself has too much going on, too many details that don't feel like a simulation. His work, and the things he's been doing inside his archive don't align with the reality the world wants us to accept and, for me, I just couldn't make both ideas in the movie work together.

With the spoilers out of the way, I do want to say that my issues with the film don't entirely detract from the experience. I do thing there's a lot of merit to Archive, and it certainly paints an interesting future for the director, Gavin Rothery, assuming they get future work in the industry (which I'm sure they will). My quibbles aside, this film has a very specific vision and Rothery, being an SFX expert, knows how to blend effects with story to create something more than the sum of its parts. There's a bright future ahead for this director indeed.

All that being said, Archive was worth a watch but I don't think it's something I would go back to. It was interesting, to be sure, and I loved the lived-in quality of the film. The ending, and the details around it, don't track for me though and they keep this film from being truly great. Instead I'll look ahead to whatever Rothery does next.