![]() That leaves little doubt as to where the story’s headed. No sooner have they hit the road than Finch’s nagging cough and weak spells start escalating to the level of Mimi in La Bohème. He chooses San Francisco as their destination, inspired by a postcard of the Golden Gate Bridge.ĭespite poignant notes in the all-too-foreseeable depiction of a planet ravaged by climate change, it’s remarkable just how low-stakes the script feels. That forces Finch to load up Goodyear, Dewey and the as-yet-unnamed new droid into a solar-powered RV and head west. But even before the AI family addition has been taught to walk and its data fully loaded, it forecasts a convergence of major weather events bringing a 40-day superstorm their way. The new robot’s primary directive, beyond preventing harm to Finch, is to protect Goodyear in Finch’s absence. Wearing a UV suit that monitors external conditions, Finch goes on regular foraging expeditions accompanied by a modified lunar rover named Dewey to retrieve canned goods from the few places not ransacked by desperate and mostly unseen human survivors.īack in his bunker, Finch has been building a sort of scrap-heap droid - the upright, chatty C-3PO to Dewey’s chirping, nonverbal R2-D2 - programmed with encyclopedic knowledge that includes a manual for the training and care of dogs. Louis laboratory of the company where he once worked. You’ll know almost exactly where Finch is going every step of the way, but the movie’s balance of technology and disarming tenderness gradually wears down resistance, with Gustavo Santaolalla’s gentle score helping the case.įor the 10 years since a cataclysmic event rendered Earth an uninhabitable wasteland, with 150-degree temperatures and toxic radiation levels, Finch has been living alone with Goodyear in the underground St. Here, he plays ailing former robotics engineer Finch Weinberg, whose only company is Goodyear and the increasingly sentient robot - who names itself Jeff - that he built to look after the dog in the event of his physical decline or death. In Cast Away, Hanks’ stranded character spent much of the action in one-sided conversations with his sole companion, a volleyball named Wilson. ![]() ![]() As engaging and photogenic as newcomer Seamus is, however, it must be said that director Sapochnik (“Repo Men”) goes to the well of dog reaction shots more often than is advisable.While the narrative spine is basically The Road, the feel is more often like Cast Away, with the latter connection reinforced by the star and by the name of first-billed executive producer Robert Zemeckis. ![]() Where the film comes alive is in individual moments with Hanks (who gets a crushing monologue about life choices and parental abandonment) and Landry Jones (finding new colors to the “robot as giant baby learning about the world” trope). Like its screenplay, the production of “Finch” is well crafted and completely lacking in surprises – you probably already know what Finch’s fluorescent-lit underground lab looks like, along with the wind-swept desert landscapes of a devastated future world. In true “Short Circuit”/“Chappie” style, Jeff will learn from Finch (and from their adventures) what it is to be human, and Finch will reveal the secrets of his past, including his motivation for creating Jeff in the first place. When a massive storm makes its way into the area, Finch packs the dog and the robot into a camper to head west to San Francisco, where he hopes there will be less devastation and fewer civilians. He’s used that electricity to build Jeff (Landry Jones), a tall robot that Finch has been feeding data from encyclopedias, RV owner’s manuals, dog-training books and other literature. 20 Celebrities You Had No Idea Dropped Out of College, From Tom Hanks to Oprah (Photos)
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