TAU Movie Review

TAU (2018)

Watch TAU on Netflix
Written by: Noga Landau
Directed by: Federico D'Alessandro
Starring: Maika Monroe, Ed Skrein, Gary Oldman
Rated: R
Watch the trailer

Plot
A street-smart-grifter is kidnapped and held captive by TAU, an advanced artificial intelligence developed by her kidnapper. She must race against the confines of man and machine to win her freedom before she suffers the same fate as the previous subjects.

Verdict
It's a neat concept with an execution that doesn't quite get there. It's too easy, nearly everything the protagonist faced is. I frequently questioned her actions. I wanted more from this movie, and even on a budget it could have done more. It doesn't. Instead I'm left thinking about what this movie could and should have done.
Skip it.

Review
 It's a budget version role reversal of Ex Machina (read my review).

The basic tenant of most kidnapping movies is that the person kidnapped is certain they will live and escape. That seems especially egregious for Julia. If ever the odds were stacked against her, this is it. I wish the movie and character had embraced that and her goals shifted to finding a glimmer of hope in the time she has left. Instead she is blindly confidant that she'll make it. I'm fine with that to a point.

The relationship she develops with TAU doesn't work, from their dialog to how oblivious her kidnapper is to what's going on. This seems like a big loophole he left. Julia doesn't even trick TAU into helping her. It was too easy, playing right into the plot. I was waiting for the moment for TAU to say, "Julia, there is thirty minutes of the movie left. I must now help you escape." In 2001: A Space Odyssey, a dissonance in programming sets HAL on a course to get rid of humans. I wanted there to be some kind of neat exploit for Julia to befriend him or pique his interest in the outside world.

If I was kidnapped and placed in this situation, I'd surmise my chances of survival are slim. Even if I live, the outlook doesn't seem pleasant. I would be making things as difficult as possible for my captor as death seems better than the prospective fate. Maybe I'm too cynical, but I would have liked to see Julia's hope slowly fade. There is no struggle or progression.

Maika Monroe plays Julia.

My biggest issues is that she holds all the chips. In an early scene after capture she's hitting her head against the wall and he stops her. I thought that was going to be a turning point where power shifts, but it doesn't. She's got nothing to lose and no reason to comply. She's threatened with torment, but she could have threatened to tamper with the experiment and the implant in her head. Her kidnapper also has a deadline. Julia had plenty of leverage. Alex, her kidnapper, tells her if she doesn't do her daily tasks that will help the implant map her brain he will hurt her. All she has to do is call that bluff. If she doesn't complete the tasks, his experiment fails. Why does she give in? The simple answer is to play into the plot

I like this concept, an imprisoned woman befriends an AI and teaches it about the world, but that's all there is to like. Wouldn't Alex have some kind of safeguard? He's thought of everything else, even a self destruct button that you know will play into the conclusion as soon as we're told of its existence.

This is too predictable, and then there's Alex. He's a cookie cutter villain, a sociopath tech engineer. I don't get how that hasn't manifested outside of his home. I thought maybe the movie was going to throw shade at software engineers, but no.

This plays at a few good moments but squanders them. The relationship between Julia and TAU could have been better. There's a point where TAU's "memories" of Julia are erased. I liked that idea that Julia would have to sacrifice her 'friend' for freedom and that TAU sacrifices its memories of her to help her, but the movie doesn't go there and it concludes with a safe ending.