The ways Zone 414 lifts from its predecessors, borrowing elements from character development to costuming to questions about the utilitarianism of our physical bodies, denies it identifiable or entertaining qualities of its own.
While riffing off almost every film about androids that came before it — “A.I.,” “Ex Machina,” etc. — Baird’s film fails to add anything new to the sub-genre, creating a derivative pastiche of better works that often looks visually compelling but collapses under an underwritten script.
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Screen RantDebopriyaa Dutta
Screen RantDebopriyaa Dutta
Offering no individuality of its own, Zone 414 barely manages to stay afloat with its oft-repeated tropes, which come to a listless, foreseeable end.
The script feels completely devoid of ideas about what the future of AI might look like. But what it does prove is that Pearce adds a basic layer of credibility to any film simply by showing up.