Subservience (2024) Review: Megan Fox Nails the AI Robot Role in This Otherwise Familiar Sci-Fi Thriller
Subservience features Megan Fox as an AI robot. A lifelike, highly-advanced AI housekeeper, to be exact — a fitting role for Fox since she isn’t known for expressive or nuanced acting in her filmography. This, in turn, serves as an added advantage to play the AI housekeeper convincingly, complete with heavy makeup and a sculpted lingerie model-like body. She nails the cold, robotic appearance and the impassive tone of her voice while exuding a sense of allure and I don’t blame Nick (Michele Morrone) for purchasing her in the first place when he goes window shopping one day with his kids.
Of course, the initial idea of getting her is to help him with the daily household chores, taking care of his kids including his little daughter, Isle (Matilda Firth) and infant son Max (Jude Allen Greenstein) and cooking them meals. We learn that Nick’s wife Maggie (Madeline Zima, TV’s Californication) has suffered a heart attack and she’s been resting in the hospital while waiting for an organ transplant. Isle names the AI robot “Alice” from the book, Alice in Wonderland. Alice’s presence at home has certainly eased Nick’s burden. She’s obedient and extremely dedicated to serving her primary user (Nick), even going as far as comforting him sexually. You see, Alice may have been an AI robot but she can replicate human emotions and physical desire.
The first half of Subservience is promising as S.K. Dawn, who previously directed Megan Fox in Till Death, combines The Hand That Rocks the Cradle‘s nanny-from-hell psychological thriller tropes with a dash of erotic element. The latter has Nick and Alice eventually get it on, albeit in a careless mistake because you know, a spur-of-the-moment decision. Morrone, the Italian actor who plays Nick is no stranger to erotica, given his experience in Netflix’s 365 Days trilogy.
From there, it’s a slow descent to Fatal Attraction-like territory as Alice becomes too attached and obsessed over Nick. But Dawn, working from Will Honley and April Maguire’s screenplay, takes time to pick up the pace. The story is particularly erratic during the second half with a noticeable lack of thrills, making the movie feel longer for a 95-minute duration.
But Subservience remains a decent movie which also doubled as a cautionary tale about how AI can be a threat to humanity. Such a subject is nothing new as we already see it in many AI-themed movies in the past, going back as early as the seminal black-and-white Metropolis in 1927 to Westworld in 1973, and present such as last year’s M3GAN and The Creator and the recent AfrAId starring John Cho and Katherine Waterson.
And yet, Dawn manages to take the oft-told subject matter and still manages to make it timely (the subplot about Nick’s co-workers from the construction site being angry after getting replaced by AI hits close to home in today’s real-world impact on some of the jobs) and thrilling (Alice eventually gone rogue after being re-programmed by Nick earlier in the movie).
The movie comes back to life during the third act and despite the budgetary constraints (e.g. the near-future setting is more of a formality than a fully realised vision), Dawn does come up with some suspenseful and entertaining moments while ratcheting up the tension, culminating in The Terminator-like finale in and out of the hospital.
Apart from Megan Fox’s better-than-expected lead performance (and best of all, a significant upgrade — no pun intended — from her last year’s try-hard Expend4bles, Subservience also benefits from Michele Morrone as the strained, guilt-ridden Nick while Madeline Zima delivers solid support as Nick’s fragile but determined wife, Maggie.
