BlinkyTM (2011)

A young boy living in the near future looks for an escape from a home with arguing parents. As a way to cope with the recent arguments from his parents he receives a robot companion that he ends up abusing.

Director:

Ruairi Robinson

Writer:

Ruairi Robinson

Stars:

Max Records, Jenni Fontana, James Nardini

Cast

Cast overview:
Max Records	...	Alex Neville
Jenni Fontana	...	Mrs. Neville
James Nardini	...	Mr. Neville
Joe Childs	...	Blinky Performance capture
Ruairi Robinson	...	Blinky (voice)
Caroline Rich	...	Infomercial Mother
Corbin Timbrook	...	Infomercial Father
Benny Shelton	...	Infomercial Boy
Melissa Lee	...	Infomercial Girl
Skoti Collins	...	Police Officer #1 (as Gary 'Skoti' Collins)
Antal Kalik	...	Police Officer #2 (as Antal Trescott Kalik)

Storyline

Along with a rapid advancement in technology and robotics comes great innovation too. With this in mind, let us all welcome the revolutionary robot with a mind of its own: BlinkyTM, the state-of-the-art servant, helper and friend of a not-so-distant future. As a result, for this Christmas, young Alex will get his domestic robot in the hope of bringing his dysfunctional family together, however, when things don't go exactly as planned with one conflicting order after another, even BlinkyTM can start malfunctioning. Perhaps a warm reboot could help.

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Plot Keywords:

cleaning up blood | cleaning | orders to kill | advertising | police | 

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Taglines:

Soon every home will have a robot helper. Don't worry, your kids are perfectly safe.

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Genres:

Short | Horror | Sci-Fi

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Details

Country:

USA Ireland

Language:

English

Release Date:

20 March 2011 (USA)

Also Known As:

Bad Robot

Filming Locations:

Huntington Beach, California, USA

Company Credits

Production Co:

Image Now Films, Alturas Films, Logolite Entertainment

Technical Specs

Runtime:

13 min

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Quotes

Alex Neville: [as Blinky starts to stutter] Stupid fucking robot!
[turns Blinky off]

User Reviews

A bit more subtlety would have made it better but the effects are very well done

A boy decides he wants a robot companion like the friendly, smiling Blinky™ that he sees on the TV adverts. His parents oblige and he finds himself with a great friend and servant who never tires and always does what he is told. However, while the boy has this friend he has to see his parent's relationship deteriorate in front of him.

This short film has a nice air in brooding tension and it builds it pretty well across the film. The main selling point is of course in the area of the visual effects because for a short film these are very well done. Blinky looks convincingly real for the majority of the time, but he also has a nice sense of menace in the way that all dead-eyed staring and smiling things do; he feels wrong even when he is so clearly just a loyal robotic dog of a thing. So on this level it works but the problem is that the narrative moves us too quickly and the further it goes the more blatant it gets. This is seen very quickly as the brooding menace becomes almost comic excess, whether it be the melodramatics of the boy yelling at the robot or final shots. This disappointed me a bit because it felt like the leaps were too big and undercut the nice build up it had mostly done.

It does still work for what it is and the visual effects are well worth a look, but at times it appeared much smarter and more subtle that it ultimately turned out to be, and it was hard not to feel like the journey was better than the destination.