Mother/Android wastes its most interesting character with a soulless, somber tale

Yesterday, Hulu released the latest in a long line of post-apocalyptic films about a zombie uprising—except replace zombies with androids, and you’ve got Mattson Tomlin‘s Mother/Android. This dour, self-serious, somewhat entertaining sci-fi flick doesn’t bring anything new to the table.

One character in the story references the origins of the term “robot,” an interesting summation that runs parallel to a movie that persistently leans on tropes we’ve seen countless times before. Mother/Android doesn’t contribute anything you haven’t seen before if you’re familiar with the Terminator franchise or even The Walking Dead. It’s a glutton for sadness, and the darkness-induced audience apathy happens fast.

Mild spoilers ahead for our full Mother/Android review

The film begins with college student Georgia (Moretz) learning she’s pregnant with her boyfriend Sam’s (Algee Smith) baby. Not long after this startling discovery, the androids go into I, Robot mode, lashing out at their owners. Minor red shirt characters tell us that the androids aren’t supposed to be able to hurt their human overlords, “they’re programmed not to!”

Which I find amusing since, like, duh? I think most of our appliances and machines are not supposed to kill us. One of many examples of the dialogue in this film making you cringe more often than not. Anyway, the beginning reminded me a lot of the game Detroit: Being Human, which, for all of its faults, finally did something a little different with the genre by allowing us to see things from a different perspective, in that case, the androids.

We don’t spend long with Sam and Georgia in the pre-android domination phase before the movie jumps ahead to a world ravaged by mechanical monsters. Most of the film follows the couple trying to get to a safe zone. I think something else that frustrated me is the idea that androids, who we’re repeatedly told are extremely smart and strategic, would systematically destroy the earth after gaining sentience.

Also, if these androids are so smart and look and act like humans, why would they not pretend to be human until they get what they want? Or is what they want to cause chaos? But if they’re trying to get revenge against humans for years of subordination, you’d think they would want to go about it in a more intelligent way than by acting like, well, zombies.

What’s the point? Zombies are motivated by hunger, but the androids are motivated by…what? It makes them more of a plot device than an actual compelling antagonistic force. The nuances of the androids and their experience, what leads them to take prisoners (something never explained) for instance, never explained.

Mother/Android wastes its most interesting character

Honestly, even though “android” is in the film’s title, the movie doesn’t spend much time with them at all. Androids operate almost entirely unseen until the climax, and even then, only appear briefly. I was more interested in the androids than the human characters because the film hinted at some genuinely exciting developments that would make this stand apart from similar zombie uprising stories.

Raúl Castillo plays the movie’s most fascinating character, in my opinion, and he hardly has any time on screen. I can’t help but wonder how much more intriguing this story would have been if we had gotten it from his perspective.

Ultimately the reasoning for that is because Mother/Android is more about asking how far a mother or father would go for the one they love. That’s where this falls apart. To make some of the film’s most significant moments work, we needed a couple to actively root for because it feels like they care about each mother than anything.

Mother/Android doesn’t have that. Smith and Moretz act more like roommates who had a one-night stand and then got stuck together on this journey, which results in the movie lacking an emotional anchor. Sam’s character, in particular, is underwritten. He feels an urgent desire to protect his family, understandable, but he repeatedly mentions Georgia doubting him and his ability to be a good father. Where does that doubt stem from?

There is no depth to their relationship. I don’t believe in the love story, and there isn’t enough chemistry. Smith isn’t a bad actor by any means, but he’s just not given much to work with. Similarly, Moretz delivers a strong performance, but I found it hard to get attached to their characters because they just felt rather one-dimensional.

However, despite Mother/Android‘s many faults, I will say that I never felt inclined to turn the movie off, which is saying something. Despite its runtime veering close to two hours, it’s paced well, and I was intrigued enough to see where it would all end up. But by the end, this felt like an overly depressing story that leaves you feeling like the plot: empty.

Mother/Android is now streaming on Hulu.