Solo (1996)
Android Becomes Self-Aware
Mario Van Peebles plays a military android who defies his programming to defend the villagers he is sent to kill
Artificial Intelligence
The term Artificial Intelligence (often abbreviated to A.I.) is used to refer to machines that have developed the ability to think independently, human-like personalities and/or emotions. A.I.’s can range from Robots and Androids to Super-Computers.
The 1960s and 70s were filled with assorted plots involving evil super-computers turning against humanity. From Star Wars (1977) onwards, the A.I., became something cuddly and user-friendly. The Terminator (1984) brought a return to the evil A.I. and lethal killer robot.
By the time of the rise of Cyberpunk, the A.I. had faded into the background and become an accepted part of the scenery. As debates about such heat up in the real world, the latter half of the 2010s have brought a renewed interest in the possibility of artificial intelligence and what it would look like.
A.I.’s and other machines that turn against humanity are discussed under Films About Machines Amok.
Small Soldiers (1998)
War Between Toys
Joe Dante has resorted to a rehash of his biggest hit Gremlins, seemingly conceptually slung together with Toy Story – concerning an army of malevolent toy soldiers come to life
Superintelligence (2020)
Artificial Intelligence Comedy
We have had some standout A.I. films in the last few years. This is comedy variant where Melissa McCarthy is befriended by an A.I. who adopts the voice of James Corden
The Singularity is Near: A True Story About the Future (2010)
Documentary/SF Story About Future Machine Evolution
Based on Ray Kurzweil’s non-fiction book about the coming evolution of machine intelligence, this is an odd mix of documentary and SF, including a storyline to illustrate Kurzweil’s main theses … The vision is an extraordinarily utopian one but one has just a few plausibility problems with it
Terminator Salvation (2009)
War Against the Machines
The fourth Terminator film is slightly better than you would expect of something directed by the empty-headed McG. There are some undeniably spectacular action sequences, although the film still stands too much in the shadow of what has gone before
Supernova (2000)
Spaceship Rescues Mutated Killer
The celebrated Walter Hill directs an Alien-inspired film about a mutated killer loose on a spaceship. This was a problem-ridden production that pans out far less interestingly than it promises to be
Tin Man (1983)
Deaf Inventor Builds an A.I.
Earnest, sincere film where deaf Timothy Bottoms receives an operation that allows him to hear again, as well as builds an A.I.
Short Circuit (1986)
Cute Robot
Cute robot film that essentially plays out as E.T. with diodes. It gets some laughs and has a some virtuoso effects but as SF this is a film that can only be enjoyed as mindless entertainment
Scream 7 (2026)
Slasher Sequel
The Scream series drags itself for another sequel but at least performs a course correction by bringing back original screenwriter Kevin Williamson in the director’s chair, along with appearances of many past cast
Rome 2072 (1983)
Future Gladiatorial Combat
Lucio Fulci was a cult Italian horror director. This was the only occasion that Fulci visited the SF film, a low-budget ripoff of Rollerball by way of Mad Max featuring futuristic gladiatorial games
Transcendence (2014)
Scientist's Mind Uploaded Into a Machine
A film that bites off some Big Ideas from the transhumanist movement – A.I., nanotechnology, and especially Mind Upload – and fails to do anything with them except for reach for hoary cliches of Frankenstein science. A film that, despite its self-importance, ends up as only a better budgeted version of The Lawnmower Man
Resident Evil: Retribution (2012)
Videogame Adaptation/Complex of Zombies and Mutants
Another unnecessary entry in a creativity-handicapped series, the continuing popularity of which is baffles. This shuffles through the familiar moves, brings back several familiar characters but only leaves me asking why I have invested some nine hours of time following this series
Resident Evil (2002)
Videogame Adaptation/Lab Complex of Zombies
Based on the survival horror videogame, this was the first in a surprisingly popular series of films. It also presaged a major return of the zombie film during the 2000s/10s, even if this only treads where George Romero went better before
Ra. One (2011)
Bollywood Film/Superhero Emerges From a Videogame
A Bollywood venture into science-fiction that does a reasonably impressive job of trying to mount CGI superheroics … on the other hand, the plot deals in simplistic black-and-whites and draws on models of SF two decades out of date
Rogue Warrior, Robot Fighter (2016)
The Machine Revolution/Space Opera
A pneumatically inflated heroine fights the machines amid a standard array of space opera and post-apocalyptic future tropes
Zone 414 (2021)
Future Film Noir/Androids
Very much informed by Blade Runner, this features Guy Pearce as a futuristic detective on the trail of a missing girl in the android zone
Next Avengers: Heroes of Tomorrow (2008)
Animation/The Children of Marvel Superheroes
Whose bright idea was it to give us kid versions of The Avengers (ostensibly their children)? While Marvel have had an unparallelled string of hits on the big screen in the 00s, their attempts to replicate the successes that rival DC have had in animation have been a dismal failure
Cyber Tracker (1994)
Action/Killer Law Enforcement Cyborg
Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson stars as a law enforcement officer pursued by killer androids in a blatant made-for-video action movie copy of the basics of The Terminator and RoboCop
Eagle Eye (2008)
Surveillance Thriller/A.I. Amok
Shia LaBeouf ends up on the run from the FBI in a conspiracy involving an A.I. A thriller about the surveillance society that, despite much sound and fury, finds almost nothing to say about its subject
Tron Legacy (2010)
Adventures in Cyberspace
Tron was a groundreaking work that predicted the advent of cyberspace. Three decades on, this sequel never does anything as imaginative, although advances in effects technology allow for a dazzling reinvention of The Grid
2036 Origin Unknown (2018)
Mysterious Artefact on Mars
An SF film where a remote probe lands to Mars uncovers a mysterious artefact of possible alien origin on the Martian surface. And then things start getting weird.
Debug (2014)
Malevolent A.I. on a Spaceship
Actor David Hewlett directs a B-budget film where a team of convicted hackers are sent to clean out the computers on a spaceship only to come up against a malevolent A.I.
Dark Cloud (2022)
Trapped by an A.I. House
SF film about a woman suffering amnesia who is sent to an automated house to recuperate only to be made prisoner by the sinister A.I. that runs the house
Cyborg X (2016)
Post-Holocaust Cyborg Wars
From Arrowstorm Entertainment, a low-budget company that make highly professional films. Here they have even roped Danny Trejo into playing a role in a passable attempt to replicate a 1990s Albert Pyun post-holocaust cyborg film
Cyborg She (2007)
Romance With a Time-Travelling Cyborg
A Japanese romantic comedy about a lonely nerd who falls in love with a cyborg girl that has time travelled back from the future
Uncanny (2015)
Android Artificial Intelligence
This was made before Ex Machina and has a surprisingly similar plot – although takes it even further in many regards – where a woman journalist goes to interview a tech genius and ends up in a romantic triangle between him and his android creation
Captain Marvel (2019)
Marvel Comics Superheroine
The MCU offers up their first superheroine with very unexceptional results. A competent enough effort but DC’s Wonder Woman easily blows everything this tries to do out of the water
The Electric State (2025)
The Robot Revolution
This is a film that had the capacity within its hands to be a classic work about A.I. and robotics. Adapted from the art of Simon Stålenhag and directed by the Russo Brothers who were behind the last two Avengers films
Blank (2022)
Imprisoned by an A.I. House
A film about a writer who retreats to a fully automated smarthome in order to complete a novel only to end up imprisoned by a malfunctioning A.I.
Black Road (2016)
Near Future Film Noir
Near future set science-fiction noir as a cyborg-enhanced hero is drawn in to conduct an investigation on behalf of a morally ambiguous femme fatale. Despite a reasonable effort made, this is a little too low key
Billion Dollar Brain (1967)
Spy Film
Third of the Harry Palmer spy films starring Michael Caine, which were made as a more grounded alternative to James Bond. Unfortunately, this has been placed in the hands of Ken Russell who overblows everything with a giddy eatravagance
Armed Response (2017)
A.I. Prison Amok
Behind the generic action movie title, this is an SF about a unit of soldiers led by Wesley Snipes venturing into an automated prison to investigate the death of personnel by an unknown force
Wifelike (2022)
Android Wives
This is like a version of The Stepford Wives updated to the era of Ex Machina and the modern A.I./android film
Andromedia (1998)
Teenage Girl Uploaded to the Internet
An early Takashi Miike film where a teenage girl is killed and her personality uploaded to the internet, having been conveniently backed up by her father on three cd roms!
The Alpha Test (2020)
Android Rebellion
Another film on the topic of androids and A.I.’s run amok. This concerns a robot maid that ends up rebelling against her human owners and turning murderous due to conflicting orders
Airplane II: The Sequel (1982)
Disaster Movie & SF Spoof
Airplane was a parody of the disaster movie that proved a hit. This was a sequel that expands the action aboard the space shuttle and contains many SF in-jokes but to generally lesser effect
Earth Star Voyager (1988)
Space Expedition
TV mini-series that came out hoping to ride the coattails of Star Trek: The Next Generation but looks dated barely ten years later. Somehow the idea of teenagers on a space mission didn’t get many audiences enthused
Electric Dreams (1984)
Computer Falls in Love
Lightweight, rather silly effort where Lenny Von Dohlen’s home computer becomes sentient and the two compete for the love of neighbour Virginia Madsen
Extinction (2018)
Alien Invasion with a Conceptual Reversal Twist
At first glance, this seems a routine alien invasion film. However, this becomes a whole lot more watchable with a mid-film twist that turns what is going on on its head
Mercy (2026)
Future A.I. Judicial System
Director Timur Bekmambetov makes a film in the Screenlife process where the screen becomes a computer screen. Set a near future L.A. where the judicial system has been replaced by an A.I
Transformers: Age of Extinction (2014)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
Are there any new creative directions that Michael Bay feels he he has to explore for a fourth Transformers film? All the Transformers beating the crap out of each other and copious mass destruction has become hard to tell one of the films from each other
M3gan (2022)
Artificially Intelligent Doll Amok
A horror film about an artificially intelligent children’s doll that resembles one of the Big Eyes paintings, which then proceeds to go full-on Terminator
Transformers: Dark of the Moon (2011)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
The third of Michael Bay’s Transformers films. While the human scenes opt for a ghastly miscalculated sense of humour, the effects houses are at the peak of their game, even if Bay allows them to drag the mass destruction out to a numbing excess
G-Loc (2020)
Space Journey
SF film with Stephen Moyer as a spaceship survivor who boards a ship with the crew mysteriously dead and becomes caught up in interplanetary politicking
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (2009)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
The first of Michael Bay’s Transformers sequels has even better effects and more copious mass destruction to the point it washes over you without any effect
Iron Man Three (2013)
Comic-Book Superhero
A major disappointment. Stripping the superhero of the show of his suit makes for no more than a regular action hero, while the film’s reduction of Iron Man’s No 1 villain to a cardboard threat ranks down alongside a Batsuit with nipples
Infinity Chamber (2016)
Artificially Intelligent Prison
A reality bending film about a man held in an automated prison where he must outsmart the prison’s A.I. in order to affect an escape
Mega Shark vs Mecha Shark (2014)
Giant Shark vs Giant Robot Shark
Third in The Asylum’s series of Mega Shark films where they borrow the Godzilla series’ idea of Mecha-Godzilla and pit the Mega Shark against a robot copy of itself. Here the Mega Shark series is starting to approach the entertaining silliness of their Sharknado films but still flounder amid tatty effects
In the Blink of an Eye (2026)
Cross-Historical Story
Former Pixar director Andrew Stanton, known for Finding Nemo, Wall-E and John Carter, makes a cross-historical work in the vein of Cloud Atlas that takes place between prehistory, the present and the future
Terminator: Dark Fate (2019)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
The sixth Terminator film that boasts the return of both James Cameron and Linda Hamilton to the franchise. After the troughs of Terminator: Genisys, this makes one forget about the last three sequels
I, Robot (2004)
Robots Amok/Isaac Asimov Adaptation
Disappointing adaptation of Isaac Asimov’s Robot stories. The film pays token acknowledgement to Asimov’s characters and universe and mostly seems interested in spectacular effects set-pieces
How to Make a Monster (2001)
Cyborg Suit Amok
Horror movie about computer game designers dealing with a motion-capture suit that has gained life and is trying to kill them. This has nothing in common with the 1950s film beyond the title
Moonshot (2022)
Stowaway to Mars
From Arrowverse producer Greg Berlanti, a film about a nerd who stows away on a voyage to Mars
Gintama (2017)
Live-Action Anime Adaptation
The live-action adaptation of a popular anime and manga, this takes place in an alternate history version of Japan where samurai fight following an alien invasion
Morgan (2016)
Artificially Intelligent Android
A.I. film directed by Ridley Scott’s son. The set-up seems awfully similar to Ex Machina – unfortunately, this sidesteps any of that fascinating questions about A.I. that film dealt in, while the latter half just becomes The Terminator before reaching a frankly unbelievable twist ending that sinks the film
Marjorie Prime (2017)
Holograms of Departed Loved Ones
From the always interesting Michael Almereyda, an adaptation of a Pulitzer-nominated play set in a future where people replace their departed loved ones with holograms
Transformers: The Last Knight (2017)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
The fifth of Michael Bay’s Transformers films. This comes with more of an outright comedy focus than any of the other films where Bay seems to be second-guessing his critics and spoofing his own peccadilloes in quote marks, only to produce the silliest entry in the series yet
The Outsider (1996)
Android Amusement Park Amok
Low-budget film that steals the premise of Westworld in the story of an amusement park that recreates the world of 1940s film noir with androids, which proceed to go amok
Transformers: Rise of the Beasts (2023)
Live-Action Transformer Robots
The seventh of the live-action Transformers films, the second made after Michael Bay stepped down from the director’s chair
Mother/Android (2021)
After the Android Apocalypse
A directorial outing from Mattson Tomlin, a screenwriter on the rise of recent, Chloe Grace Moretz is a pregnant woman struggling to survive in the aftermath of the android rebellion
WarGames: The Dead Code (2006)
Teen Hacker Thriller/Amok A.I.
WarGames was a thriller that was way ahead of its time; this sequel is no more than video fodder exploiting recognition factor that reduces the original to hacker movie cliches in a technically ill-informed and incoherent plot
The Transformers: The Movie (1986)
Transformer Robot Wars/Animation
Animated theatrically released spinoff from the original Transformers tv series. The film mostly serves to highlight the considerable number of characters where to the uninitiated it is frequently difficult to tell one side from the next.
Terminator Genisys (2015)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
A hodgepodge of competing elements – an aging Arnold Schwarzenegger, a soft reboot, alternate timelines, reintroduction of the familiar, twists to the familiar – that make no sense on a narrative level, least of all come anywhere near what James Cameron delivered back in the first two films
Zoe (2018)
Android Relationship Film
Films about androids and artificial intelligence have taken off in the 2010s. This comes produced by Ridley Scott who made Blade Runner, the defining classic on the theme; on the other hand, it ends up in the hands of a director who specialises in relationship dramas
Virtual Girl (1998)
Virtual Sex Program Amok
One of the numerous Virtual Reality films to come out in the mid-90s, this seems undecided whether it wants to be an SF or an erotic film
Margaux (2022)
Smarthome Amok
Group of young people get away to a smarthome for the weekend, which then tries to kill them. The most ridiculous amongst a mini-spate of films about smarthome A.I.’s
Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines (2003)
Time-Travelling Killer Androids
After the highs of James Cameron’s first two Terminator films, this was a crashing disappointment. Schwarzenegger is back but his performance has become self-parody and the uninspired action sequences are accompanied by some terrible effects
The Dungeonmaster (1984)
Warrior's Virtual Quest/Anthology
An anthology film produced by Charles Band where assorted directors turn in seven episodes all centred around a videogame warrior put through a series of tests by The Devil
Afraid (2024)
Smarthome A.I. Amok
The first film to come out following the advent of generative A.I. From American Pie director Chris Weitz, an evil A.I. film that arrives with all the hysteria of villagers with burring torches in a Frankenstein film
Arcade (1994)
Malevolent Virtual Reality Game
A quickie effort made by Albert Pyun for Charles Band’s Full Moon Productions to exploit the Virtual Reality themes popularised by The Lawnmower Man, concerning a malevolent VR videogame
Automatic (1995)
Action/Android Hero
Olivier Gruner plays an android who goes rogue after accidentally killing his boss. A dull action film with no greater ambition than to be an SF version of Die Hard
Automation (2019)
Robot Develops Artificial Intelligence
Another among the recent spate of Artificial Intelligence film, the story of a secretary who befriends a robot. This is an A.I. film on a B-budget that you feel should have been made as a comedy
Bicentennial Man (1999)
Robot Gains Self-Awareness/Isaac Asimov Adaptation
Isaac Asimov may not have been the best science-fiction writer ever but his stories buzzed with challenging ideas. In the hands of Chris Columbus, one of Asimov’s robot stories is reduced to mawkish sentimentalism
Chappie (2015)
Artificial Intelligence/Robot Becomes Self-Aware
Neill Blomkamp’s film about A.I. turns into Short Circuit dropped into the militarised future of RoboCop. Of all the rich possibilities in the idea, all we get is a goofy comedy with a pimped-out carjacking robot
Child’s Play (2019)
Evil Artificially Intelligent Doll
The controversial remake of Child’s Play where Chucky is no longer possessed but become an artificially intelligent smart toy. This seems to misconstrues everything that the fanbase of the series celebrates by a mile
Crosstalk (1982)
AI Murder Mystery
Australian thriller about an inventor who has created an A.I,, although the film only puts it at the purpose of a routine murder mystery plot
Cyberjack (1995)
Action/Hi-Tech Terrorists
An absurd action movie copy of Die Hard where Michael Dudikoff tries to stop terrorist Brion James as he seek to steal an artificially intelligent computer virus
Death Race 2050 (2017)
Future Road Race/Satire
Death Race 2000 was a hit for producer Roger Corman. It was remade minus the satire as a straight action film with Death Race; here Corman remakes the original (albeit very cheaply) and restores the satire
Delete (2013)
Artificial Intelligence Amok
The return of the talented Steve Barron after a decade’s absence in a film that was shot in my own backyard (literally). Disappointingly, all we get is a work that unimaginatively rehashes cliches about amok A.I.s
T.I.M. (2023)
Android Stalker
We have had a spate of films in the last few years about androids and A.I. This has to count as the first film about an android stalker
Demon Seed (1977)
Computer Wants to Have Sex
Adaptation of an early Dean R. Koontz novel about an A.I who imprisons a woman in her own home with the intention of impregnating her. A variant on Rosemary’s Baby conducted far more tastefully than you might think
Galaxina (1980)
Female Android
The major distinction this has is in starring murdered Playboy Playmate Dorothy Stratten. An SF comedy made in the aftermath of Star Wars where Stratten is an android on a ship voyage romancing her human commander
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (2005)
Gonzo SF
The big-budget film version of The Hitch Hiker’s Guide phenomenon is a disaster that fumbles Douglas Adams’s absurdist wit and blows everything up with big-budget effects and a pitch to American audiences
Subservience (2024)
Robot Nanny Amok
Another android gone amok film with former sex symbol Megan Fox cast as an android nanny who starts defying her programming
Somnus (2016)
Space Mission Problems/The End of the World
This low-budget British effort seems to be making a good start as a film that deals with space travel realistically only to bog down in one of the most incomprehensible plots one has ever sat through
Outside the Wire (2021)
Rogue Military Android
There have been some impressive works about A.I. in the last few years. This plays out as Ex Machina by way of Training Day and is only notable in its ridiculous implausibility
Life Like (2019)
Android Servant
There have been some extremely good films about androids and A.I. in the last few years. This one about an android manservant is so ridiculous it should have been played as a comedy
Android Insurrection (2012)
War Against the Machines
A painfully cheap film that feels like an amateur effort that was accidentally given a dvd release. Essentially Resident Evil but with killer robots instead of zombies, this shouts its impoverishment from every scene
Virtuosity (1995)
Android Serial Killer
Director Brett Leonard started the fascination with Virtual Reality off with The Lawnmower Man but shot himself in the foot with this absurd braindead follow-up in which Denzel Washington pursues a madly OTT Russell Crowe as an android serial killer
The Mangler 2 (2001)
Artificially Intelligent Computer Virus Amok
Tobe Hooper’s The Mangler was one of the worst of all Stephen King adaptations and this is modern sequel generating of the worst order where the Mangler now becomes an A.I. and a computer virus
Let’s Be Evil (2016)
Augmented Reality Experiment
While the title suggests a series of malicious games, this is an SF film about participants in an augmented reality experiment who are locked in a facility with strangely alien children
Identified Flying Object (1985)
Cute Artificially-Intelligent Helicopter
Low-budget director Ulli Lommel makes a film about a teen who befriends an artificially intelligent rogue military helicopter in what becomes E.T. by way of Blue Thunder
Virtual Combat (1995)
Virtual Characters Come to Life/Action
Completely ridiculous martial arts SF film with Don ‘The Dragon’ Wilson as a future cop fighting a videogame character incarnated in the real world
Universal Soldier: The Return (1999)
Undead Super-Soldiers/Action
Sequel to Roland Emmerich’s Universal Soldier, this brings back Jean-Claude Van Damme but otherwise substitutes a brain dead plot that has him facing an evil A.I.
Robots (2023)
Android Doubles Comedy
A comedy variant on android/A.I. themes where two people use robot doubles for romantic subterfuge only for the two androids to elope together
Short Circuit 2 (1988)
Cute Robot
Sequel to the cute robot film pushes the cutsie elements to a nauseatingly anthropomorphished extreme, having it spout smartass colloquialisms and erasing even basic credibility
Invader (1992)
Amok Alien-Possessed Military A.I.
A completely ridiculous film that throws in an incomprehensible mix of an amok A.I.’s that takes over a stealth plane, UFOs, mind control and military conspiracy and proves badly made on every single count
Superman III (1983)
Comic-Book Superhero
The nadir of the Christopher Reeve Superman films, one where the desire to add a comedy element in the form of Richard Pryor overtakes and wrecks what is already a random and unfocused plot
A-X-L (2018)
Robot Dog
Outside of animation, there has never been a decent genre film about cute dogs. This film about a robot dog is no exception. The surprise is that this is produced by the normally respectable David S. Goyer