S1m0ne

Director and writer Andrew Nicol has only a few scripts and movies in his record, but all are memorable. He wrote and directed 'Gattaca', wrote 'The Truman Show' script, and here he is again both writing and directing with 'S1m0ne'. It is seldom that one director chooses his films in such a focused manner, and in his case it certainly pays back.

'S1m0ne' is another story about Hollywood, but a really original one. Since the film was released the first completely virtual film became reality, and some of the best movies of 2002 combine real actors and fantastic computer generated characters. Is this a threat to the big star system? This is the main theme of the movie. The second, and maybe even more important is the cult for icons, the morbid fascination of the public with the life of celebrities. The two themes play well together, combined with the excellent portrait that Al Pacino creates for his Faustian director.

I liked the movie. It has enough interesting material to keep the interest. The weaker points are the length - yet another film which would have benefit if it was 10-15 minutes shorter - and the final which is too conventional relative to the originality of the rest of the script.

8/10 on my personal scale - go and see or rent it, you will not be disappointed.

This wasn't a bad comedy starring a famous actor who is known more for his dramatic roles: Al Pacino.

For a one-joke storyline, I thought the film was pretty good, and certainly better than the critics would have you believe. The story moved well, only getting a little preposterous in the final 15-25 minutes, although the whole film is a tongue-and-cheek look at Hollywood fame.

It's a nice-looking DVD and Rachel Roberts falls in that category, too, as the beautiful computer-generated new movie star who isn't what people think.

This turned out to be an "okay" but not one that people raved about or added to their collections. Maybe it was the weak ending.

If we analyze the role of this movie under today's influencers power and upcoming AI changes, we can be seeing a movie that was many years into the future. This one is aging really good.

Today's influencers are these empty shells that amass millions of followers and views but no one really know what or who is behind them, everything can be faked, can be simulated and is there only for the screen. I really recommend this movie as an exercise of futurism around marketing concepts. It is well acted and becomes quit interesting. Robert de niro role is top quality and the beauty of simone is superb. Recommend watching it.

By Greg Ursic

Many people bemoan the loss of the Hollywood mystique, when contract actors were essentially owned by the studios and lived glamorous, carefully tailored lives, and were surrounded by an air of mystery. The public however is just as much to blame for this - our insatiable need to know everything - how much the stars earn, who they're dating, what they're addicted to ... - has left them then without any semblance of privacy. It's amazing that today's superstars don't immolate under the spotlight's glare. While the days of discovering the next screen legend in ice cream parlours may be over, they may soon be created over a banana split...

For Viktor Taransky bad things do indeed come in threes, in his case, movies: a former Oscar nominated director, his last three films have been box office dogs. His comeback attempt is apparently dashed when the star ("A supermodel with a SAG card") of his latest film walks out on him citing creative differences. Replacing her seems impossible - as an agent eloquently notes "[For my client] having no credits is better than having a Taransky credit." He also learns that rock bottom can always be adjusted when the studio chief - who also happens to be his ex-wife - lets him know that he's being fired. Distraught and demoralized, Viktor's salvation appears in the guise a seemingly deranged genius who offers him the ultimate software for the director who can't find a star - who says you can't make em like you used to?

For those accustomed to Al Pacino's typical cast of characters -serious, dark and brooding, with an intensity level that never drops below 10, Viktor Taranksy is a refreshing change. As the real (read: flesh and blood) star of the film, Viktor is a man with a quandary - a director with integrity and vision, who actually sees beyond the box office, he must perpetrate a hoax, to get his film made and salvage his career. Pacino is appropriately low key and morose- even when Viktor should be bathing in the glow of success there is a palpable manic undercurrent and sense of foreboding. The supporting cast is a mixed blessing.

Catherine Keener, who plays Elaine, Viktor's ex-wife (her second role as a Hollywood executive in as many months), has suprisingly little presence in the film - her dialogue is light and her character is relatively inconsequential. I can only assume that this was done so as not to detract from the other adult female lead (see below). Evan Rachel Wood, delivers a solid performance as the daughter, supplying maturity and offering sage advice to her self-involved immature parents. Of course the real star is Simone.

As a synthespian, (or as the designer of S1MøNE software notes "The pc term is "vactor") Simone is happy with every script she receives, never complains about her perks and will never age - a director's dream. Though sultry and seductive, she projects a soothing screen presence, and you feel the symbiosis between her and Viktor. It wasn't until the credits started rolling that I realized Simone really was a computer generated image (this is confirmed by both the press kit and everything I've been able to find on the internet) and is a composite of Hollywood leading ladies from the past (drawn from the "Legends Library").

Although marketed as a comedy, "Simone" highlights the growing impact of technology on how we perceive reality. While moviegoers have come to expect special effects in their films, most don't realize the extent to which they are actually utilized - it is not uncommon for actors to be made thinner, or taller, with the click of a mouse. Several films have already employed synthespians to perform difficult stunts and last year's Final Fantasy showed how far the technology had come (bankrupting a movie company in the process). Simone demonstrates that actors themselves may soon be in jeopardy. Of course there are other issues lurking in the background: will we be faced with the spectre of Jimmy Stewart in Scary Movie 6 or Grace Kelly hawking feminine hygiene products? More disturbing is the possibility that in the near future the news reports we're watching could be wholly fictional and we would have no way of knowing? But that's more than enough paranoia for one review.

The first half of Simone is both fun and engaging as the public's thirst for knowledge about Simone grows: co-stars brag about partying with her, people say that she speaks to something in them because she is so real (irony at its best), and Simone reaches virtual demigoddess status. Unfortunately, the manic pace and almost giddy feel of the film begins to wane in the second half, meandering between different plot elements, and winding up in a too perfect conclusion.

Go for the matinee and stay for the popcorn.

Ever since I first saw Gattaca, I've been looking for other films directed by Andrew Niccol. This being one of them, and so far, one of the only ones(but I certainly hope he makes more films in the future... he has some very interesting ideas), I simply had to watch. I was not disappointed. Like Gattaca, this is science fiction; however, Gattaca is more of a all-out sci-fi film, and S1m0ne only has some elements of science fiction. Before I comment on the sci-fi, I must comment on the great humor in the film. This is the first of Niccol's films(Truman Show, Gattaca and then this) I've seen that has comedy(in the form of satire, that is). Truly great comedy, as well. You know why? Because it's real. It's stuff that we can recognize, stuff that we know from ourselves, from the people around us. The comedy mostly revolves around how easily everyone is tricked, how quick they are to believe in something without any proof. I believe it was Voltaire who said: "If there were no God, it would be necessary to invent one". We want to be deceived, we want to be tricked, we want to have something to hope for and believe in. I mean, let's be honest; that is the very basis for why religion exists, and why people claim to spot UFOs. People need to believe in something... and they believe in Simone. Despite what her maker has her do, despite no one ever having met her in person, people love her. They need to. They need someone, something to believe in. The many scenes of Viktor covering up Simone not being real, creating the illusion of her in various forms to satisfy other people's urge to see her, meet her, talk to her may be somewhat slapstick in their nature, but they only emphasize how ludicrous and easily bought the everyday man is. They want to believe it so badly, they simply can't accept anything else. This seems to be what most critics of this film are missing. Their refusal to accept it is simply them denying human nature. As Pacino's character realizes near the end: "She's indestructible". It is not possible to remove her, because the public won't accept it. She must exist. I noticed a lot of references to the story of Frankenstein in this film. It is basically the 21st century's version of Frankenstein, with some computer-based science fiction elements and set in Hollywood. I have never seen a film that so openly mocks the superficiality of Hollywood, and for that reason alone, anyone should see it. The plot is very good, though it develops at a somewhat uneven pace... in fact, the pacing seems a tad off. The acting is mostly very good. The special effects are top-notch... they were in 2002, and they still are. This could have been better, but it was still very good. I recommend this to anyone who is interested from reading the plot outline, people who enjoyed Gattaca and fans of science fiction as commentary on real issues. 7/10