A man versus machine story with great visuals

Rating: 8/10 (11 September 2013)

This is a film about assumptions, how wrong they can be and how they can destroy you, if you're not careful. This applies to machine intelligences as much as it does to those manipulated by them. Ultimately, we all make mistakes and we are all punished for them.
Kosinskis film uses tropes from other sci-fi movies (what sci-fi movie doesn't?) and wraps them in the prettiest looking visuals since Bladerunner. The sci-fi future it depicts is almost retro in it's homage to various prog rock album cover art from the 1970's. This is a strength.
Its main weakness is an unwillingness to push its world building further into the plot and stick to rather safer blockbuster territory with predictable twists and unreasonable optimism. The visuals remain a wallpaper essentially as the plot carries our hero onward is ways we have seen before, so many times.
Nevertheless it is a far better film than critics would have you believe and Kosinski has delivered the goods here, well worth a look.