Jakarta. “Subservience,” the sci-fi thriller starring Megan Fox, is now playing in Indonesian theaters. Although the movie starts off quite well, the latter half somehow drags.

S.K. Dale’s “Subservience” follows the story of Nick (Michele Morrone) and his family purchasing an android who will later be named Alice (Fox) to take care of the house. Nick’s wife Maggie (Madeline Zima) is not home as she is in the hospital. All hell breaks loose when Alice the android gains sentience, and grows obsessed with Nick.

“Subservience” portrays different conflicts. The first is the question of infidelity: Nick cheats on the hospitalized Maggie with Alice. When confronted by his wife, Nick claims that it does not count as Alice is not a real person.

The movie also has an interesting subplot of Nick’s buddies getting worried that the androids might take over their jobs. This subplot is quite timely as the world we are living in today has similar fears with the rise of artificial intelligence (AI) and soaring layoffs. In some ways, “Subservience” is also reminiscent of the 2018 adventure game “Detroit: Become Human”, although the latter has a much better story.

The first half of “Subservience” is pretty solid. Fox fits the AI character, and speaks like an actual robot. The audience feels irritated at Alice’s subtle attempts at stealing Nick, while also understanding his friends’ worries after getting replaced by androids at their jobs.

Unfortunately, “Subservience” fails to execute its second half as well. As the story nears its end, the whole family gang up on Alice to save the baby. Alice is then taken to who-seem-to-be android technicians, but she ends up corrupting another robot --who looks exactly like her but with a blonde bob wig-- to get rid of Nick’s family.

This is the start of another confrontation between Alice and the family. While this is supposed to be the final battle, it feels somewhat flat and drags on for too long. It makes the audience wonder when this movie will end. 

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