Amelia 2.0 (2017)

What a waste of my time!!!

A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

Just intense enough to provide a much-needed diversion, just lightweight enough to make you forget about it soon after it’s over. It’s not exactly “good,” per se, but it does what it sets out to do in terms of putting us on edge, which makes it … successful?

At the time I write this review, the average rating is 5.6, which makes my rating of 9 a bit of a reversal for my reviews (I'm demanding in my story-telling and tend to rate films lower than the average audience).This is a highly unusual rating situation for me. On the one hand there is almost nothing truly exceptional about this film. On the other... I almost gave it 10 stars for sheer excellence in presentation.* This movie is slow-moving, intricate, and asks some very difficult questions. I will not spoil any of the plot by discussing precisely why I found this story so engrossing, but there are several elements that make it applaud-worthy: 1. Sensible discussion of the concept of God and contrary opinions to such without overt blasphemy. It simply presents both sides of the viewpoint... quite well in my opinion.2. It discusses the "soul" without becoming dogmatic.3. It addresses ethical issues in regard to reproducing humans in a non-standard manner (again, no spoilers by discussing how. All that I am going to discuss here is what's presented in the summary and trailers.) 4. It really hits the emotions of every single role and does so very well. This is some of the best directing, acting and character portrayal I have seen in a long time.5. It presents a couple of unexpected twists that really tie the story line together very well.This film presents the questions, the arguments, the positions and personal issues of the subject matter in a surprisingly short period of time. This could have been a lengthy mini-series and held together well. That they accomplished what they did within the time allotment of a single film is pretty awesome.In short, this film accomplished what I see so very few films accomplish these days: it told a story and told it very well. It didn't rely on heavy CGI, had almost no "action", and focused almost exclusively on the lives and roles of the people involved. There were no sharks jumped here, no absurdities (which is admirable in itself), no great big plot loopholes where there could have been many. They did surprisingly well in almost every aspect. It came very close to getting 10 stars, which I've given to fewer films than I have fingers. It may be a bit slow and uneventful for the adrenaline junkies of today's generation-- but for those who still appreciate the art of story telling and the morality play, this is a rare gem.* I dropped my rating to a 9 for a single F-bomb which was out of context with the entire rest of the film and unnecessary to the plot. Consequences for directorial stupidity. It would be nice just once to see someone make an entire movie based purely on great story-telling rather than resorting to shock schlock. This movie *almost* made it. Still, worth every bit of the 9 stars I give it.

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.

Some people have compared it to a modern Frankenstein story, but I don't think that this particular concept was appreciated for what it really was. Living in a modern world has led everyone of us to feel at one point that we live in a paper cup society where everything is or could be replaceable. This movie represents exactly what it was meant to represent "all science, no philosophy". It's all these questions that we want answers to, knowing full well that we won't get them because we're not meant to know, just like we're not meant to live forever. These questions will continue to haunt our society long after we're gone, only to one day come to the realization of what we all knew all along that our arrogance will be the catalyst of our own demise.

Another approach for the Theseus's paradox, what makes us "us"? Is it our bodies? Our conscience? Our memories? If we maintain our conscience, but change the body, are we the same? If our memories are implemented in another being, do we "die" and, at the same time, reborn in another body? The film uses this complex discussion and distillate it - a lot - for the viewer, it is so watered down that we can't even consider it with a philosophical concept anymore.(here I start nitpicking, if you don't like that skip the next paragraph)Maybe it happened like this for plot reasons, but some things didn't make sense, for instance: when Amelia (android) had her first contact with Amelia's (the deceased wife) memories, everything was fine until her system conflicts with the fact that the deceased wife is dead. The android believes that she is still that Amelia, but how come can she be that Amelia if she shouldn't be awake? So her system enters in a breakdown and so does she. For me, understandable, the android would have access to an early memory that is triggered by two events: in school when a little girl approaches her and at home when she faints; fast forward to the android getting better acquainted with her body, and here starts the "plot-holes", Amelia known she is married, but doesn't know who the person she is married with, which doesn't make sense, a huge event such as a wedding isn't something that she should understand and even request for "my wedding ring". She must know what a wedding and a wedding ring represent, thus knowing that she has to be married with someone, being married implies that she has spent sometime with the other person - cue the memory she has of someone she can't remember her face, but makes her happy. It is highly unlikely that she only had one memory of that person, she must have done several other connections to connect someone as her husband, otherwise she wouldn't be able to recognise herself as a married woman, nor the value of her wedding ring.Story wise I believe the script seemed rush, they tried to use a lot of different characters and it felt over-saturated, for instance the political part was rushed in some moments and wasn't used in its full potential. The characters development, considering those that have, is limited, some are out of nowhere as Max in love, others are expected as Paul being a greedy (companies and money vs. Science and patience). Some of the acting is distasteful, even though I didn't have my hopes high for some actors and actresses.It is a 90 minutes film that will pass and you will feel like nothing changed in your life, as I said before the philosophical idea that could have been a mark of the film on the viewer was watered down, thus a plain film that will be forgettable for most.