Tau

After her successful roles in modern cult films "The Guest" and "It Follows", Maika Monroe has established herself as a scream queen, a position which should only be further manifested by "Tau", an artificial intelligence thriller which suffers from not being able to make use of a mildly interesting premise. In terms of cinematography and style, "Tau" is good enough, not outstanding, but it's certainly watchable. However, it's the nonexistence of any interesting aspects in its script which really brings this down - everything is always only hinted at, never fully explored, not to mention that most of its ideas aren't entirely original either. Maika Monroe gives a decent performance and I enjoyed Gary Oldman's voice role (even though I can't really understand how he went from winning an Oscar for his incredible portrayal of Winston Churchill to grabbing some cash with this), while Ed Skrein's acting didn't catch my attention at all. To sum things up, "Tau" does not have the most original premise and doesn't follow up on it with an interesting plot, instead creating something surprisingly boring and dull. Just like many other Netflix sci-fi movies, I cannot recommend watching it.

In the early scenes of this sci-fi thriller we see protagonist Julia, a small time thief, gets taken from her home. When she wakes she is in a lab and has an implant in the back of her neck. After a painful procedure she is sent to a cell where she finds two others people in a similar predicament. An escape attempts leads to the destruction of the lab but not her freedom. Her captor, scientist Alex, intends to complete his experiments; this will require Julia to do various mental tasks under the supervision of TAU; the artificial intelligence that controls the house and its systems... which include a lethal robotic sentry. If Julia is to escape she will have to find a way to reason with TAU.

I rather enjoyed this film; it may contain plenty of elements from other films but it still works well and kept me gripped. Julia is a good protagonist; tough but not excessively so and Alex is a menacing, largely due to the fact that he controls TAU and the robot. TAU is interesting too; it is described as an Artificial Intelligence but it is more than that; an Artificial Conscience which clearly has emotions. The scenes with Julia trying to bargain with TAU were fun and not too rushed. While there isn't a huge amount of action what there was, was exciting and raised the tension notably. The cast was solid; Maika Monroe impressed as Julia and Ed Skrein was effective as Alex, a character who is outwardly very calm but prone to busts of violent anger. The special effects were pretty good. Overall I'd say this was a pretty decent sci-fi film; worth checking out.

This movie isn't very original or groundbreaking, and it becomes a rather predictable ride about halfway through. But, if you can manage to suspend your disbelief just enough, that ride is still mostly entertaining.

The acting is decent, although Ed Skrein's character is not very convincing as either a villain or a scientist. I felt the AI was lacking a bit in the "I" department and the interactions with it are mostly shallow.

Visually it all looked very pleasing, although lacking in originality.

All in all, this movie does feature a little bit of everything you might want to experience in a movie about AI. The action, the suspense, the drama, it's all there. And if you don't expect a masterpiece or blockbuster, you may find it very passable for what it is.

7/10.

Reading the synopsis of Tau I expected a movie like Cube, Saw, The Breathing Room, Circle etc. Namely a movie where people are taken against there will and forced to play a game of death. I love movies like that!

Sadly that is not what Tau is at all. It tells the story of a girl trapped in a house with both her captor and an advanced AI that prevents her from leaving. But to what end?

Tau looks the part, I enjoyed the setting and minimal cast but the story though interesting is badly flawed in some places and highly predictable in others.

Starring It Follows (2014) star Maika Monroe I feel that not only should the movie have been longer but maybe more should have been explained. A couple of unanswered questions left me frustrated and a couple more could certainly be considered plot holes.

This is a decent enough try by Netflix, but isn't exactly groundbreaking.

The Good:

Some nice ideas

Looks the part

The Bad:

Too many missing pieces

Things I Learnt From This Movie:

Netflix is SO outstandingly inconsistent with the quality of their films

I want an advanced AI!

But seriously, this should have been one of those death game movies

I thought Tau was a pretty cool film and i dont really understand some of the bad reviews. The story and acting were good. It wasnt full of action though so if your looking for action its not a film for you, but i was hooked dieing to know what was going to happen. Not bad for a netflix film and maika monroe was awesome too!