Curtis (John Cho) works in a marketing company. In order to secure a new client, he agrees to have a new AI assistant called AIA in his home. Initially he, his wife, Meredith (Katherine Waterston) and their kids think AIA is miraculous as their needs are met and even anticipated. But soon they realise that something more sinister is happening.
AfrAId has been a critical and commercial flop, but it is not a complete loss. There is a scary pre-credits sequence and Waterston is incapable of giving a poor performance. Lukita Maxwell is impressive as Curtis and Meredith’s oldest child and David Dastmalchian is predictably creepy as an employee of the AI company.
Director Chris Weitz’s screenplay is full of interesting ideas about AI. However, there are too many of them for an 85 minute run time and none of them are properly fleshed out. The characters are quite poorly drawn, not only are there clever people making stupid choices, but they do not behave in a consistent way.
There are, amongst the mess, some chilling moments, but the ending is both silly and confused. I am sure that there is a great film about AI to come, but this is not it. It is not, though, as bad as the reviews warned.
Rating: 5.5 out of 10