Movie Review: ‘A.I. Tales’

Review by Caitlin Zeigler

Four short films show how humans and A.I. help or hurt humanity. The first short is called ‘Seed’ and it’s about a man who has to end his life to help the planet thrive. ‘In/Finite’ is the next short about a woman who seemingly wants to ditch her family and friends for a long space journey, so that she no longer feels like she’s “suffocating” under them. ‘Phoenix 9’ is about survivors trying to survive a devastated planet, and when they finally have an out, they find out there’s a really big catch. Lastly, ‘Redux’ is about a man, who possibly discovered time travel, and is being hunted down for this advancement in technology. The cast includes Nelson Lee as ‘Nathan’, Pom Klementieff as ‘Cat’, Joshua Mac as ‘Ethan’, Lawrence Ko as ‘Jack’ and Georgina Reilly as ‘Sarah’.

All of the shorts are straight to the point and dramatic. ‘Seed’ and ‘Redux’ go straight from point A to point B. You know what’s happening and it ends. It leaves you with a million questions. ‘Seed’ is a bit more polished, in that you understand what’s happening a little bit more. ‘In/Finite’ is dramatic and well-written. You can feel that this woman is trying to escape something or someone, but you don’t fully know why. The best short is probably ‘Phoenix 9’ because it’s longer and gives you more answers and leaves you in suspense. The world pretty much ended and a group of people are holding up hope and when they reach a breaking point, hope is restored for all of two seconds. These shorts were good overall. It feels like they could’ve used a few more details, but the writers left the audience guessing what they think happened and it feels like they meant to do that. If you want to watch these shorts, they aren’t very long, so you can easily invest a little over an hour into watching them altogether.