Unexpectedly Los Angeles is devastated in a nuclear explosion and AI agents are identified as the culprits, leading to the USA banning AI and resolving to eradicate it from the face of the Earth.
So begins a decade long asymmetric war, mostly in "New Asia" where AI are just part of society.
Operative Joshua (John David Washington) goes long term deep cover in New Asia working an asset Maya (Gemma Chan) who is supposedly connected to the mysterious Nirmata, the originator of the foundational AI research and suspected to be still active.
The two get married and are expecting a child when his handlers swoop in as they believe Nirmata is on-site: killing everybody with a strike from the USA's orbital superweapon NOMAD and extracting Joshua.
Now, five years later an obviously unsympathetic Joshua is recruited to go back into the field to again hunt Nirmata and the weapon they have developed to strike back at the USA. The military claim Maya still lives and that if he assists them they will help get her out.
No good will come of this.
CW: obviously dubious abusive premise
Pitch meeting: the Vietnam war with art direction by Simon Stahlenhag.
The very lengthy premise belies a quite simple film that looks stunning. It's got chunks of classic sci-fi narrative at its foundations like "what is personhood?" but doesn't really do much exploring. There are holes in the plot as big as the ones in the simulants' heads and it's just generally a bit shallow.
A lot of discussion has been around how Gareth Edwards made a stunning looking film on 1/3 the typical budget for a blockbuster at a time when as much as we are seeing great movies being made the sheer expense of making certain types of movie is causing them to be considered failures when they don't take a billion dollars. It's becoming very all or nothing.
I think this is important. He's made a movie to equal great swathes of the market that was affordable (in movie terms), wasn't a franchise, sequel or bankable IP. Like we used to get a lot more.
It's also funny in parts (a great "loaded dog" gag), keeps you interested throughout and does have some real emotional moments.
It's not a classic but a laudable endeavour from all involved in a universe where we're on the TENTH Fast & Furious FFS, 7/10.