Amelia 2.0

I thought this was a pretty good film. It wrestles with the question of consciousness and what makes us human. As a drama it delivers plenty of emotionally charged moments that keep you invested in the characters and the story. The acting is believable and well written. I would recommend this movie.

Though set in a science fiction format, this movie centers on a deeply loving newlywed couple overcome by tragedy and how the husband deals with this issue. In his grief, he agrees to the plans of a corporate giant in the remote hope of "curing" his wife's terminal condition.

Technically, the film is state of the art with some obvious exceptions. Note the aerial view of the corporate campus looking quite cartoonish, like an architectural drawing or SimCity home computer creation.

The flow of action was quite uneven, spending long moments in philosophical discussions while skimming over the scientific elements of the story (the "how it was done" aspects). The ending was quite disturbing to me and didn't seem possible, given modern corporate security methods. It appeared that the film was running out of time (or money) and ended quite abruptly in poetry and bucolic bliss.

All in all, please just suspend disbelief. Doesn't get into the technical aspects of creating a simulacrum, but instead goes more after the moral implications of doing so. The choices are more on the order of black or white, not really much in between. And leave out the husband. He's there, and not really all that sympathetic, or quite mentally stable. Likely could have been better, but it seems to be more about moralizing than much else. The omnipresent, "if we can do it, should we?"

If the teenage son of the owner of a local news station had to do a term paper for a first year philosophy class, and the news station owner decided it might get a better grade if it was a video, and told the crew at the station to make it, the video might come out something like "Amelia 2.0".

It's difficult to compare it to a movie or even a TV show because nowadays those almost always have relatively skilled professionals working on them, even if they have no talent. Regardless, the video addresses an interesting topic, but not in any meaningful way, and without the usual dramatic elements of fiction, even at the level of a docudrama or biopic.

It does have some competent professional actors, but they weren't given actual characters to portray, so it's sort of like they walked in off the street and were given lines to read. The editing was pretty tight though.

This was a movie made on a low budget, and I feel they did a fantastic job. I feel the strongest acting came from the supporting roles, but overall, great acting. Some people classify this as a science fiction movie, which it is, however, I feel the underlying message of love and existence and morality is what is meant to be delivered through the science fiction setting. It really does inspire you to think about which side of the issue you stand on. In my case, I changed my viewpoint a few different times throughout the movie. I felt the sound design could have use a little more support and a little slow-going in the first 10 minutes or so of the movie, but I would watch this movie again, and recommend it to my friends. Hats off to everyone involved in making this film. You all did a fantastic job.