Mother/Android Review

I can’t think of a worse time or a robot uprising than when you found out you’re just a few weeks pregnant. And any person capable of performing an abortion has likely been murdered by an Andriod nurse.

The beginning starts us off strong with a high-pitched screech that causes the androids to turn into murderous beings. With little to no choice for survival, our main characters Georgia (Chloë Grace Moretz) and Sam (Algee Smith) go on the run together to try and avoid being killed by the androids.

We jump forward nine months as Georgia is now 9 months into her pregnancy and is due any day to give birth. The couple has their eyes set on Boston as the safest place to deliver the baby since it’s the only city within the area that hasn’t fallen to the androids yet. Throughout the movie, you can feel there’s a bit of an allegory here about motherhood and sacrificing everything for your family but I feel like it’s kind of lost as the characters continuously make all the wrong choices to get them through their journey.

The Good

I honestly thought setting a pregnant woman as the center character in the apocalypse was an interesting take. Being in the middle of a robot uprising forces characters to make some drastic choices for survival but adding all the potential setbacks pregnancy can add to that struggle is quite interesting. We see how the lack of adequate medical care has taken hold in just the first 30 minutes. Georgia not only has to give birth but also thinks about things like infection, cutting the umbilical cord, food, and a variety of other things that even modern women struggle with today.

Placing the world in a “not-too-distant” future also helped connect the story to the audience as well. Although I Robot has a special place in my heart (I know it’s not that good), it still feels kind of unreachable just from the sheer amount of advanced tech you’re bombarded with throughout the movie. While android servers aren’t quite here yet, the movie almost makes it seem like it could happen any day now.

The Bad

Although the story seems like it’s supposed to be about how Georgia is going to be forced to come to terms with her new role as a mother in the middle of an ongoing human-robot war, it’s Sam who unfortunately takes the most shine in the movie. Although he constantly states how every decision is made to protect Georgia and the baby it feels like he’s trying to do the exact opposite at every opportunity.

There are also some unanswered plot holes in the movie which leave you scratching your head more than anything else. I’m all for “movie magic” explaining away some things but it should still be somewhat believable. The most obvious one is here when Sam goes up against a soldier to try and get a ride to Boston. Sam is visibly smaller than the soldier who spent the last few minutes on the screen showing us how badass he is then in the next scene Sam somehow managed to beat his skull in and blind him. I understand it was just to move the plot along but I feel like this needed to be fleshed out a little bit. Just a bit…

What Could’ve Been Different

The director Mattson Tomlin has talked about how Mother/Andriod is a love letter to his own parents. He was born in Romania during the aftermath of the Revolution and was adopted by American parents. Seeing as he never knew who his natural parents were, he wanted to explore that very same concept of parenthood during wartime. This sounds like a great fresh idea but the movie seemed to fall short of its own plot. There were definitely heartfelt moments in the cinematography and the chemistry of the actors on screen but there was very little commentary that focused on the tough decisions parents have to make until the very end of the movie.

I think the movie would’ve done better if it focused less on the spectacle and more on the narrative. There’s a moment where they talk about the subtle difference between man and machine and I think they really could’ve expanded on that point more to really show the lengths people will go to protect their family.

Rating: Entertaining but lacking

5/10