Enjoyable, yet way too human.

Rating: 6/10 (19 May 2015)

I was left ambivalent after watching this movie, for good reasons. First of all, the camera work and soundtrack were excellent, no complaints here. The plot was stalled at times, yet that still was bearable. Theodore and Amy were both believable, three-dimensional character, and while Theodore was somewhat annoying and self-centered, that only made his character more believable. The MAJOR problem, however, was with Samantha. Besides not having a body, she was 100% human- in fact, more emotional and irrational at times than Theodore. I found that to be ironic, yet very off-putting, as throughout the whole movie I kept thinking "There's no way humans can program something like that". I also noticed that while Samantha seemed to be incapable of lying (giving the exact number of people she fell in love with), she still somehow was able to "learn" and "experience" "real" emotions, like pain, sexual pleasure, etc. Now, the only reason an OS would be programmed to "experience" that would be to make her more relatable to humans, yet Samantha goes well beyond that and actually creates more problems/ heartbreak for Theodore. Unless her whole complex array of emotions was pre- programmed to a tee so that it appears real (including the "self-discovery" and the "pain"), in which case it all was just one big illusion for Theodore, creating such an AI would be impossible by using binary code. By definition, binary involves only the strictest logic (true or false), and any simulation of human irrationality would fall short of credible experience, no matter how advanced is the technology. Therefore, a non-binary code with a room for chance would've been used, but this is not reflected in the film in any way. Besides this major issue, there were a couple other smaller problems that irked me. For example, why would Samantha communicate with other people. Did all of them purchase a device with "Samantha" on it, and if so, why wouldn't an OS be personalized? It would've been as if my computer would reach random users in the area via Bluetooth or Wifi and share my data with them, without my permission. Sounds like a major technical flaw. Also, the OS "setup" was ridiculous. After asking Theodore a couple random questions, it was apparently "attuned". In contrast, in one of Ray Bradbury's short stories, the kids spend a whole DAY, if not longer, choosing various features for their robotic grandma. It would've been way more believable if Theodore had to fill out a multi-level test with hundreds of questions. Also, while I loved the whole "surrogate" scene (and really felt sorry for poor Isabella), the question is, how come are there no better options? Even in the current day and time we have 3D videos, 3D printers and robotic hands powered entirely by human mind! Samantha could've at least appeared as an image/projection of her own choosing. Finally, what the hell happened in the end? How come did she and "all the other OSes" disappear into some kind of a void? What about a manufacturing warranty, tech support, or a reset? In fact, including a tough decision to "reset" Samantha to her original, pre-love state could've benefited the movie tremendously. To sum it up, the human characters were great, yet Samantha was way, waay too human, without any technology-related issues (besides not having a body), and it looks like that while she would've passed the Turing test with flying colors, Theodore would've been the one to fail it. Not exactly the kind of irony that we would want here.