The Curtis family is selected to test a new home device: a digital assistant called AIA. AIA learns the family’s behaviors and begins to anticipate their needs. And she can make sure nothing – and no one – gets in her family’s way.
Writer/director Chris Weitz’s techno-thriller, “Afraid,” has nothing new to say about the potential risks and terrors of incorporating artificial intelligence into our everyday lives. We, the audience, know that everything isn’t hunky dory from the film’s opening scene. In that sequence, a family of three lounges in a bedroom, scrolling through their devices, when the house’s AI system calls the young daughter downstairs. The naked eye can see nothing physical, but the video footage shows a spectral, shadowy figure lurking in the hallway. Once the parents notice their daughter is no longer in the room, she’s nowhere to be found.
From there, the film follows the Pike family as marketing executive father, Curtis (John Cho), his wife, Meredith (Katherine Waterson), and their children allow a new AI system, AIA (voiced by Havana Rose Liu, who also plays the role of Melody) into their home. “Afraid” takes the clichéd route as far as cautionary tales about technology go. The family is initially reserved and cautious before quickly being won over by the system’s capabilities, giving themselves entirely to the new technology.
Of course, things take a 180 after a few days. Curtis’s daughter, Iris (Lukita Maxwell), finds herself the victim of a deep-fake video, with AIA quick to lend a helping hand. AIA introduces the oldest brother to swatting videos and nonchalantly waves off the cursing of the youngest child. Meanwhile, Curtis begins to notice creepy similarities between the employees of the tech company and the people in the RV camped outside their house. Wouldn’t most people ask their neighbors about it or call the cops on a random RV that has been there for days?
“Afraid” is easy enough to watch for the first hour. After that, it gets messy and overly complicated. As Weitz attempts to wrap things up, he raises more questions, ending the movie on a weak note that plays up AIA’s all-powerfulness to the film’s detriment.
The film is presented on Blu-ray™ Disc by Sony. From a technical standpoint, the movie shines. It looks excellent. The DTS-HD 5.1 surround track gives a solid dialogue presentation but doesn’t do much to immerse the viewer in the film’s world. The sound design is front-heavy, virtually ignoring the rear speakers. I don’t remember hearing my bass engage throughout the movie.
The disc’s special features are paltry. A brief featurette called “Dark Side of AI” is more of a puff piece on the film, with the actors and some crew members praising the movie. The disc also includes extended/deleted scenes, which don’t add much interest.
Since we live in an age without rental stores for physical media, this is a disc I’d recommend passing on. I’d say rent it, but there’s no conceivable way for most people to do that. If this one strikes your curiosity, I recommend waiting for a sale on a streaming service or for the film to come to Netflix. It’s not an abysmal waste of time, but it is also not worth the $20+ they charge for this disc. “Afraid” would be perfect bargain bin fodder if the bargain bin still existed.
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