|
Another film devoid of any originality about a super computer who takes over the world in order to complete a task he believes humans have failed in ...
This time it is the software that takes the Big Brother concept a step forward; it was developed in order to gather information and conduct surveillance ofter suspected terrorists – allegedly a worthy cause. But after an American attack against suspected terrorists launched in total disregard of the computer's warning fails, causing the death of innocent people and a wave of attacks against Americans, the computer decides to take matters into its own hands. It chooses two victims – a young man, estranged from his family, who lost his successful and genius twin brother, and a single mother who sent her son to a concert in the capital alone and chose not to join him (why? It's not exactly clear). But they are not alone - there are others who play smaller roles in the diabolical scheme of the computer who has total control of their lives (and the lives of all of us) ...
Although the Movie is packed with suspense and non-stop action and special effects (by the way, nothing we haven't seen in Firewall, Enemy of the State, The Net and the like, or even Die Hard 4), but the plot is riddled with holes. The main question is why would the computer need a human to execute his plan – the bit about the perfect match between the fingerprints and voice of the twins just does not work, and they were not even identical twins. By the way, where did the two victims, just ordinary people, acqire the fighting, driving and weapons skills needed to confront the computer?
The comparison with the 2001's HAL is naturally inevitable. It is reasonable to assume that whoever designed HAL in the 60's, would have designed it pretty much the way ARIA was designed in the early 21st century, though in this case I believe less would have been more. Other than that, nothing much has changed - not the computer's arrogance, not the red lights flashing in its eyes, not even its "death" - which only pays tribute to the vision of Arthur C. Clark and Stanley Kubrick and highlights the lack of originality in this Movie.
Oh, yes, HAL was considered Science Fiction in the 60'. It's hard to believe only 50 years have passed. |