Subservience (2024)

AKA M3GAN FOX. AKA FAITAL ATTRACTION. Those would have been my suggestions anyway.

You know how it is. When your wife ends up spending some time in hospital, with no guarantees of necessarily surviving the whole ordeal, then it can become difficult to balance your work and home life, especially when you have two small children. So you may end up investing in an advanced household "server bot" in the guise of Megan Fox. 

That's the plot of Subservience, basically, but with the added wrinkle of M3GAN FOX then becoming dangerously obsessed with her new owner, Nick (Michele Morrone). That gives Nick some problems, of course, but also upsets his wife, Maggie (Madeline Zima), and puts his children (Isla and Max) in potential danger.

Director S. K. Dale made his feature debut with Till Death, also starring Megan Fox, in a film that generally received some good reviews for both concept and star. That was more fun than this, thanks mainly to the efficiency of a great premise worked into a fun and tense script. The writers of this film, Will Honley and April Maguire, know what they're aiming for, although they sadly never push things too far into the world of the wonderfullly bonkers, but are hampered by a couple of big problems.

The first big problem stems from their own writing. There's a sub-plot here that comments on the lives being changed, and potentially ruined, by the progress of technology. Nick has a friend/ex-colleague, Monty (Andrew Whipp), who finds himself, along with many others, no longer needed at his place of employment. It's not necessarily bad to explore that tension, but it doesn't work in this movie. What works are the moments that are enjoyably trashy and focusing on the increasing tension of the main situation.

The other big problem is Morrone, who just isn't a strong lead. I'm not saying that it's the easiest job in the world to convey conflicted emotions and confusion while being attracted to a Megan Fox android, but Morrone needed to do much better here. His weak performance is especially disappointing compared to the good work from Fox and Zima, the former exuding an air of constant menace while not always overtly doing anything wrong and the latter being a vulnerable woman hoping to get her strength and health back before she loses her place in the family unit. Whipp is okay, I guess, but he just has to be angry and vengeful, and young Matilda Firth is sweet enough as Isla (with her even younger brother, played by Jude Greenstein, easily inhabiting his baby role by simply being a a baby).

I wanted this to be better, but I would be lying if I said that I didn't have fun with it. Everyone involved tries to hit the brief, as it were, and there are times when it does exactly what you want it to do. Unfortunately, there are too many times when it seems to think it needs more substance. Get a better lead actor in here, strip away the sub-plot commentary on the global situation, and you have a fine piece of sexy sci-fi silliness. As it is, Fox has the star power and the acting ability to still make this worth your time, but that really depends on whether or not you like Fox in the first place.

6/10

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