Main cast: Robbie Amell (Evan), Jordana Brewster (Faye Aline), Alicia Sanz (Esmé), Simu Liu (Casey Rosen), and Sam Worthington (Aaron Kessler)
Director: April Mullen
Simulant is another sci-fi thriller about androids or AIs or whatever one calls these things—they are called simulates here—gaining full sentience and deciding that they too deserve the right to live as they want, blah blah blah. It’s not an original premise by any stretch of the imagination, although one can argue that the AI race at the moment may make this particular theme more relevant than ever before.
This is where I should probably say that nothing on this website thus far is generated by AI, so this place, at least, hasn’t gone full Skynet yet.
In what I assume is the near future, the corporation called Nexxera allows the production of simulates that look like Robbie Amell and will do anything I ask of them. Wait, is this supposed to be a bad thing? My money is ready, just tell me whom I should give it to to have a few of that!
Anyway, in this one, Evan is happily married to Faye, and recently, they were in a pretty bad car accident. While they both appear to have been unharmed, he keeps having recurring nightmares of the accident and is plagued by how he can’t recall what happened immediately after the accident. He also can’t play the piano anymore, and his wife is very distant from him—he doesn’t understand that last one, and how she keeps rejecting his efforts to mend whatever rift that may exist between them.
Of course, it’s pretty obvious to the viewer: the real Evan died, and Faye commissioned a simulate to replace her husband in every way, except this Evan is programmed to have his behavior limited by what she has decided for him to do and can’t. Even then, she is aware that this simulant is still not Evan, hence her coldness to and avoidance of him.
Rounding up the cast are Kessler, a hobo-looking officer of the Artificial Intelligence Compliance Enforcement or AICE that is looking for a MIA simulate called Esmé and Simu Liu, because you can’t spell the title of this movie without his name. Well, just kidding—Mr Liu plays Casey, supposedly Esmé’s neighbor, that crosses path with Kessler. Kessler wants to look into how Esmé manages to develop sentience and even empathy and creativity, and he has a strong spider sense that Casey has something to do with that.
All of these people are living in a society that is increasingly divided between people that are okay with “sims” becoming members of society that are indistinguishable for the most part from regular people and people that want to keep sims as their automated working class that is segregated from humans.
If the whole thing sounds like Blade Runner or any generic sci-fi plot about robots getting sentience, well, that’s because this is exactly what this is. It’s even as slow as Blade Runner, although thankfully this one isn’t three hours long.
Unfortunately, with the tropes out in full force, it’s also very easy to correctly guess all the twists and turns the movie throws my way. I do like the juxtaposition of a more uplifting arc of Casey wanting to free the simulants with Evan’s darker arc, but sadly, I know what will happen from early on so there are few surprises here. As a result, I’m mostly waiting for the movie to confirm what I have guessed, and the movie feels far longer than it is as a result.
Still, this is a well put-together film, and Simu Liu, Sam Worthington, and Robbie Amell manage to keep things interesting, with a lot of help from Mr Amell’s hotness and his willingness to go shirtless during the slowest parts of the movie. It is Alicia Sanz, however, that puts on the most gut-wrenching performance as Esmé, and I’m glad the character has a happy ending after all she has been through.
The plot can be iffy though, as much of it hinges on AICE being hilariously incompetent and slow to act. Casey isn’t any better, as he loves to hide at places that can be easily traced back to him, so it’s a good thing for him that AICE is even dumber than he is.
All in all, this is a pretty generic movie that is still a compelling watch.
Just watch out for Simu Liu’s shirtless scenes—let’s just say that when this terminally online Karen whined that no one should call him a thirst trap because he is an artist, well, if that’s his way of telling people to avoid putting him in sexy scenes, he’s actually doing everyone a favor. Good directors don’t ask Mr Liu to take off any scrap of clothing!
