ARCHIVE

		Review by E.C. McMullen Jr.
ARCHIVE - 2020 USA Release: July 10, 2020 XYZ Films, Untapped, Quickfire Films, Metrol Technology, Lipsync, Head Gear Films, Hero Squared, Independent, Vertical Entertainment Rating: USA: N/A

High on a snowbound Japanese mountain, in a previously abandoned research station, George Almore (Theo James: UNDERWORLD: AWAKENING, DIVERGENT [all], UNDERWORLD: BLOODWARS, ZOE, HOW IT ENDS, Jeff Wayne's THE WAR OF THE WORLDS: Musical Drama, CASTLEVANIA [TV], THE WITCHER: NIGHTMARE OF THE WOLF, DUAL, THE TIME TRAVELER'S WIFE [TV]), aided by two rather boxy, clunky robots, works alone on his concept, his idea of fully self-aware Artificial Intelligence.

Seems self-aware AI is a bar that's still difficult to reach in our near future. Apparently there are plenty of imitations, but actual AI that can say, "I think therefore I am." and fully understand the implications of that sentence remains a dream. A dream that has far reaching unknown branches and uses.

It's not simply about making robots that can behave as independently as humans, but the ability to medically repair injured humans with artificial components that are more enhancement than crutch. Any human who is a valuable asset to their company is at risk for all manner of morbidities. Losing them can injure, even bring down a company. Saving them, perhaps improving their abilities, is a bet worth taking.

Letting him work alone in an old abandoned research station, the company ARM, represented by George's boss (Rhona Mitra: BEOWULF, HOLLOWMAN, THE NUMBER 23, DOOMSDAY, UNDERWORLD: RISE OF THE LYCANS, THE GATES [TV], THE LOFT, THE LAST SHIP [TV], THE STRAIN [TV], SKYLIN3S, THE OTHER ME), is edgy about the expensive risk her company is taking. Everything on this costly project, which is approaching its end date without an acceptable prototype, is a high risk - primarily because George convinced her superiors that he needed to do this by himself. George's boss suspects a secret motive and is frustrated that she can't prove anything yet.

Meanwhile, as he experiments and learns, George has his unacceptable prototypes. His J1, is a simple-minded robot, housing the mind of a toddler. That was the limit of the first year tech. His second year J2, a more advanced prototype, houses the maturity of a 15 year old, which is the limit of that tech.

This would all seem fantastic, that a single person could invent such things wholly on his own. Wisely (with loud echoes of BLADE RUNNER throughout), first time Writer and Director Gavin Rothery shows us that all the various substrata of such tech already exists in the world. George is looking for new ways to use and build upon what already exists.

Primarily, that would be the MacGuffin of this movie, a 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY monolith that towers and dominates the center of what George has made his living room. It's called an Archive and it houses the full mind of George's wife, Jules (Stacy Martin: TALE OF TALES, HIGH-RISE, THE NIGHT HOUSE, AMANTS).

Jules died in a car accident years before, the nature of which is more horrific every time we see George remember it.

By design, the tech of the period has a user limit of 200 hours. For those grief stricken survivors who didn't get a chance at farewell, they have 200 hours as the living mind of their deceased runs out (good thing, too. Who'd want to spent eternity alone, blind, and imprisoned in a "coffin"?).

Jules is aware that she's a disembodied mind in a box and doesn't want it. Meter readings on the box show her emotional state of mind, suggesting that the Archive regulates extreme emotions. Actor Stacy Martin is also the voice of J1, J2, and J3.

George tries to calm her concerns, assuring her that the box is temporary and he is working to "cure" her.

At this point, this early on, you can see where the story is going. George is building his J3 prototype which, as time runs out with his company, will be his last prototype. What ARM doesn't know is that George is way more driven than they realize, to make his research work.

Why?

Because George is going all FRANKENSTEIN to transfer his wife's mind from the Archive to the artificial brain of a viable synthetic creature: J3. That's what J1 and J2 are: experimental robots built to house and test copies of Jules' mind.

So he has to be secretive because the fact is, ARM pays for everything so owns everything he invents in this isolated station.

Problems arise when J1 and J2's synthetic brains, that aren't good enough to house the full adult complexity of Jules, realize that they are both obsolete to George. This is particularly hard news to J2, who takes this rejection the way you'd expect of a 15 year old. There's a 15 year old version of Jules in J2 and both robots love George because their copies of Jules' mind loves George. J1 is beta stage enough to love George like a child loves a parent, but J2's more advanced synthetic brain loves him romantically.

George is aware of what he's done and has a vague idea of keeping them on after he's perfected the J3 as some kind of rudimentary family. J2 is mature enough and smart enough to know that's not the kind of love she wants from George and she comes to distrust him further as George thinks little of using her body parts to build the J3.

For me this makes George increasingly unlikable and it's only through flashbacks of his life and love with Jules - when George was a different person - and the eventual full details of how she died, that makes him fragile and worth compassion despite his cold madness.

I can't forgive his madness (he's building sentient children and betraying them), but I sympathize with the mental trauma he experienced (that left him physically scarred as well) and the lonely reality of survivor's guilt that is driving him to insanity.

Meanwhile, the Archive corporation sends representatives periodically, per regulations, to check on the operation of their property, along with armed guards. Apparently there are plenty of people who can't peacefully return an expired box that once housed the mind of their loved one. Customers don't own the Archive box, they only lease it until they've used up their 200 hours, then return it.

When Archive's representative, Vincent Sinclair (Toby Jones: SIMON MAGUS, THE NINE LIVES OF TOMAS KATZ, HARRY POTTER AND THE CHAMBER OF SECRETS, THE MIST, CITY OF EMBER, HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS Part 1, THE RITE, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE FIRST AVENGER, THE HUNGER GAMES, SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN, THE HUNGER GAMES: CATCHING FIRE, CAPTAIN AMERICA: THE WINTER SOLDIER, TALE OF TALES, THE SNOWMAN, JURASSIC WORLD: FALLEN KINGDOM, OUT OF THE BLUE, THE DARK CRYSTAL: AGE OF RESISTANCE [TV], INFINITE) checks the settings and finds the Archive security seal is broken - a breach of contract - he insists on forcibly taking the box back immediately. George staves this off by reminding Vincent that Archive is on ARM's corporate property where Archive has no legal jurisdiction.

Vincent and his detail leave but that only buys George time as Archive will negotiate the return of their box from ARM and, when that happens, it won't take much of a leap for George's boss to realize what he's really up to alone there in the mountains.

For security, George goes down the mountain to meet with a sinister man named Tagg (Peter Fernando: SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN, 300: RISE OF AN EMPIRE, HIGH-RISE, GHOST IN THE SHELL [2017]) whose loyalties are unknowable. George may be willing and able to pay Tagg's price, but Tagg makes it clear that there are others with deeper pockets. Never-the-less, a truce is reached as long as George follows Tagg's strict rules.

FeoNote: As with the meters on the Archive box, the following is how production design and SFX make-up can tell a story in cinema, even fill in pages of background information on a character without words or flashback.

Tagg's willingness to protect George probably comes from the fact that Tagg's line of business is apparently dangerous enough that he's been medically repaired quite a few times. He doesn't have scars, but he's covered in obvious artificial grafts, patches: the affordable tech of the era awkwardly attached or covering every visible part of Tagg's body. From a visual standpoint (and Fernando's uncanny valley movements), Tagg is a man whose line of work is slowly erasing his existence piecemeal. He's exactly the kind of person who needs what George is inventing.

The ARM company's project deadline is fast approaching. Only a few user hours are left before his wife's mind expires in the Archive and is gone forever. Archive wants their technology back, and his J2 is rebelling and becoming a menace to the unfinished J3.

In his first time at bat, Gavin does a worthy job of presenting difficult tech and concepts wrapped in a blanket of old SF tropes and cliches. Further, I think most directors working on such a script would have opted for a boxier aspect to give the feel of claustrophobia in the research station. I like the fact that he embraced John Carpenter's love for wide-screen aspect. Gavin keeps his characters and most of the action in the center, allowing the wide-screen emptiness around them to convey George's loneliness.

You may have heard about a twist ending. In reference to the aforementioned cliches I correctly guessed it around the middle of the movie. That may come from a life of reading tons of Science Fiction and Horror and my random choices in both coinciding with Gavin's choices.

That and the fact that most movies that revolve almost exclusively around a single character have a certain line of story progression.

You might guess it as well, but like any trip, just because you know where the ride ends doesn't mean you won't enjoy it.

ARCHIVE is a trip worth taking.

Four Shriek Girls.

This review copyright 2022 E.C.McMullen Jr.

GET SOME CLOTHES ON
25 Years Spreading the Love of Horror Thriller! T-Shirt by FeoAmante	Feo Amante is not Cute T-Shirt by FeoAmante

YOU MIGHT ALSO ENJOY
2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY MOVIE REVIEW	THE ANDROMEDA STRAIN MOVIE REVIEW	THE THIRTEENTH FLOOR MOVIE REVIEW

Return to Movies