The greatest movie ever made..!

Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.

Far from Perfect, Far from Terrible

Great example of an old-fashioned, pure-at-heart escapist event movie that doesn't pretend to be anything that it's not and has boat loads of fun being its own ludicrous self.

I noticed that many reviewers associated this film with "Blade Runner" and "I,Robot". Some similarity in the image of the future and of the robots really exists here. But in fact it's not important at all for this film. The concept and the story of this film are far original than the visual effects. The title "Automata" means mechanical dolls mainly made for fun, to entertain the privileged in Europe when democratic system was unimaginable. "Robot" is neologism made by the Czech writer Karel Capek in his play "R.U.R."'(1920), where artificial human-like machines are use all over the world as universal and cheap labor forces. In the play (and in all the films with "robots" borrowing its concept from Capek's play) "robots" are like slaves, tend to overthrow the human control,want to be free, so their violence against human makes a dramatic turning point in those films. By removing all "scientific" details, their plot will not so much different from that of Eisenstein's "Strike" (or Griffith's "The Birth of Nation" if seen from "masters' point of view"). In "Automata" the plot develops in other context; those "automata" don't look like slaves. They rather look like products of awkward and unsuccessful human attempt to make "human-like" machines, as automata before 20-th century. They are not revolutionaries, they have no reason for that, if humans don't interfere their "natural" evolution. They can live without destroying the decaying city where Jacq Vaucan and other characters must live unwillingly to avoid radiation. Violence is made by humans. Many audience maybe don't have sympathy for Jacq who shows compassion for Cleo, but probably have more sympathy for Cleo.Designs of "automata" are (most likely, intentionally) old-fashioned, awkward but somehow reminding hand-maid dolls. Human hands made them with soul, so they received it from human and began to live a real life. Have you ever seen any films with similar concept of "automata". I have. It's "Ghost in the Shell 2" by Oshii Mamoru. While Oshii's film was still partly following plot of a detective hunting "rebel" androids like "Blade Runner", this film is almost completely free from human-centered plot. The last shot of sea is, of course, not real. It's a metaphor of LIFE.

Actually have seen Banderas in a couple things recently and have enjoyed his performances - he's a plus for this movie.Liked the premise and for most of the movie its a pretty good mix of sci fi and detective show...Unfortunately the stink of the 'tried and true' Hollywood formulaic approach rears its ugly head, providing what, for me, was a pretty disappointing end.. Gave it a 7, it was an 8 or 9 until then - if only because my hopes have become so low for the movies available on my Roku..

The circumstances that lead me to watch this movie were interesting. I was playing Fallout 4 and there's a robot in it called CLE0, supposedly a reference to this movie that also features a robot named that. I googled it and it seemed interesting. I love movies like 'I, Robot' and this one looked similar, so I watched it. It's also shot in Sofia, and I've lived there, so I thought, I really have to see what was made there.The cast is really interesting. Antonio Banderas felt like a strange choice and sometimes was hard to understand, but did an amazing performance. There was also an Asian woman speaking in a British accent, and likely some Bulgarian folk with slavic accents - all this felt odd and unusual. But you could argue this gave the film character.The film shares a lot with 'I, Robot' and 'Wall-E'. Maybe even too much. The setting is a bit strange and inconsistent, it's futuristic, yet people use pagers and old phones, and some futuristic devices were connected with old printer cables - I don't know what they were going for but it was odd.The acting, cinematography, music, CGI (was it CGI or puppetry?) - it's all great. But the writing rehashes from a lot from other movies and could have been better - it didn't improve on anything we've already seen. Antonio Banderas' character was way too helpless and coughing for too long for my liking. I don't enjoy movies with no rewarding character moments or sense of empowerment. I also didn't understand where Jacq and his family were headed in the end.Either way - if you like robot movies - this one is definitely worth watching. I don't know why it flew past my radar when it was first released, but it's pretty fantastic.

It's one of those movies that should have gotten more attention but due to the trailer and time of release it never made it through the shroud. It's hard to think that this movie only had a 7 million $ budget, The acting is on point the visual effects are in my opinion better than some of the super high budget movies that were released during the same time. What i love about this movie is how dark it is, i'm a fan of dystopian future movies and i have to say this is one of the better ones i've seen in a very long time, Sure it's not as good as the best such as 1984, Metropolis and v for vendetta but it deserves more attention and a solid place in the Dystopian/Dark futuristic movies. To note: I've encountered this many times people who only look at the User rating and if it's bellow lets say 7 it automatically is a "BAD" movie. DON'T be Like those people! Solid 8/10.