‘Companion’ is a second-rate AI thriller that short-circuits its promising premise with dull dialogue, predictable twists, and uninspired execution.
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Not all robot movies are the same. You can put “Metropolis,” “Forbidden Planet” (When are they going to remake this?), “The Terminator,” “Blade Runner,” “The Iron Giant,” “Wall*E,” and more recently, “ The Mitchells vs. the Machines” and “The Wild Robot” at the top of the list.` The recent B-movie sensation “M3GAN” (2022) was fun as far as it went. I have not seen the 2024 Megan Fox vehicle “Subservience.” “Companion,” the latest entry in our drab movie winter season, is not bad.
It is merely second-rate through and through. The film, written and directed by Drew Hancock (TV’s “My Dead Ex”), probably should have gone straight to streaming. But it has been given a theatrical run by Warner Bros. The sci-fi film features Sophie Thatcher of TV’s “Yellowjackets” and “The Book of Boba Fett” as a young woman named Iris, who narrates how she met her beloved boyfriend Josh (Jack Quaid, TV’s “The Boys”) at a supermarket, where he experiences a metaphorical orgasm in the form of an avalanche of oranges when they first clap eyes. In the “present” time, they drive in their talking car to a friend’s “cabin in the woods,” a set-up recalling those overrated “Knives Out” films. It turns out that the “cabin” is a big house decorated like a hotel owned by a rich, sleazy Russian named Sergey (Rupert Friend, if you can believe it). We also meet Sergey’s unfriendly mistress Kat (Megan Suri, “Never Have I Ever”) and the gay lovers Eli (Harvey Guillen) and Patrick (Lukas Gage). At the nearby lake the next morning, Iris is attacked by Sergey, and then she kills him with a switchblade.
This is when blood-splattered Iris learns from Josh that she is a “companion robot,” the mechanical equivalent of an emotional support animal, although he also has sex with her. Iris cannot lie. She can be programmed to speak many languages. She and Josh did not meet in a supermarket. She was delivered to his home in a box by workers for Emapathix, a company with whom he has a user agreement. “I’m not real,” Iris observes in existential crisis mode. “But I’m still yours,” she tells Josh.
“Oh, what a tangled web we weave” and all that. Josh has planned the whole thing in an attempt to steal Sergey’s millions in cold cash. Out in the woods on her own, Iris discovers that “typical man” Josh only programmed her with 40% of her potential intelligence. Is that why her dialogue has sounded so boring and dull-witted? But what about the others? The truth is they all sound like robots.
“Companion” makes the somewhat similarly-plotted 2024 indie hit “Strange Darling” look all the more miraculous for being so novel, inventive, and well-acted. “Companion” might have been a sci-fi fable about how a female ‘bot found her true self only after rebelling and seeking freedom from her male overlord a la “Ex Machina.” Instead, “Companion” becomes some inferior version of a heist-gone-wrong movie. The bodies literally pile up. A cop pulls his gun on Iris. Suddenly, you hear the 1968 Burt Bacharach/Hal David hit “This Guy’s in Love with You.” Why? In the film’s most deplorable scene, a sadistic Josh tests Iris’ ability to feel pain by placing a lit candle under her outstretched hand, setting it ablaze. In the case of “Companion,” all the “bad programming” is in its writer’s head.
‘Companion’
Rating: R for strong violence, sexual content, and language throughout
Cast: Sophie Thatcher, Harvey Guillen, Jack Quaid
Director: Drew Hancock
Writer: Hancock
Running Time: 97 minutes
Where to Watch: Coolidge Corner Movie Theater in 70mm, Landmark Kendall Square, and suburban theaters.
Grade: C
Boston Movie News 