User reviews

There is a fundamental incompatibility.

"Zoe" is not just a film about artificial intelligence and the influence it will have on our society. It also shows how artificially our society will be in the future. A world where feelings are reduced to figures and where pharmaceutical concoctions provide a short but intense expression of love. Both with disastrous results. Couples who are madly in love, without any major relationship problems, grow apart very quickly after hearing the final score of "The Machine". A percentage that indicates how much chance there is that their relationship will succeed. Couples who are about to split up can take advantage of Benysol to experience those feelings of falling in love again. Which in turn leads to the trade of this product in an illegal circuit, as these feelings have an addictive effect. The film "Zoe" was fascinating, intriguing and touching at the same time. A film that kept me busy the days after I saw it. I don't have that often.

"Zoe" is a mixture of "Her" and "Ex Machina". "Her" was also about the love between a person and a non-human entity. Here it was a computer program that communicated sensually and seductively using the voice of Scarlett Johansson. Just because of the sexy voice I would fall in love with this artificially intelligent creature consisting of program lines. In addition to the development of a relationship test program and pharmaceutical love potions, Cole Ainsley (Ewan "Lo Imposible" McGregor), an engineer and expert in the field of A.I. who works at "Relationist", managed to construct lifelike androids. Artificially intelligent beings that function autonomously. Just like Ava in "Ex Machina". Only less futuristic and equipped with all elements such that there is no distinction between them and a human being. Cole himself is divorced and stares every night at his computer screen in search of a possible matching partner. I wonder if his loneliness and lack of female companionship cause his imagination to go in a certain direction, which then manifested itself in the design of these "synthetics". Because his creations are equipped with a voluptuous bosom. Just like Zoe (Léa Seydoux).

The film is pretty slow. There are many moments with a distant and preoccupied Zoe or Cole. Zoe tries to fathom her raison d'être and experiences a personality crisis, asking herself who she really is. Cole is caught in his emotions when it's about Zoe. He's intuitively attracted to her but his sense of reality about the person Zoe bothers him. Perhaps because of that, you feel there's a certain kind of distance between these two individuals. An insurmountable obstacle with disastrous consequences for both. The result is a flee in self-pity for the one. And even doubting the meaning of existence for the other. But not only the romantic problems are central here. Also, the interaction of "Synthetics" with their immediate environment and other similar designs is being covered. And the associated well-known phenomenon of a piece of electronics developing a feeling of life and a consciousness is highlighted as well.

I thought the two protagonists played a sublime role as opposites. Perhaps some will say there that there was absolutely no chemistry between them. But wasn't that the point? It shows how love sometimes has to overcome difficult obstacles. And how ultimate love will circumvent all obstacles. In that respect, their acting was perfect. But especially Léa Seydoux fascinates. The way her mood changes, is wonderful to see. One moment she looks like a teenager whose young life is filled with puppy love and therefore she flutters through the scenes. The next moment she's hurt and looks like a hopelessly lost young woman, full of doubts who plunges into a chaotic love life. It was a pleasant surprise to see Theo James appear in this indie-SF. And to be honest, I found his character more interesting than the one he played in the "Divergent" story. And last but not least, you can also admire Christina Aguilera as a lifelike inflatable doll that entertains lonely fetishists.

Well, I really liked "Zoe". It's a beautiful film and a bit of a relief after a number of less successful films. But I'm guessing you figured that out already, after reading this long lyrical review. Even though I feared it would be a boring average movie at the beginning. The different story layers fascinated me and kept me riveted to my screen. It's an extraordinary film pointing out that future relationships with artificial beings will be more complex than the human relationships as we experience them today. Sure enough, I could predict in advance how it would end and what a final picture we would get with Zoe in close-up. But, for once, that didn't really bother me.

This could have been a very good movie. The plot is good and the acting is good, but being bombarded by "emotional" music (some even with lyrics) again and again and again, really cancels out the emotion it was supposed to evoke (in me at least).

Beautifull, captivating and a true love story dealing with the human condition and what it is to be alive, lonely and love.

Though this flick is marked as "science fiction" it is quite light in that category. It is about as "science fiction" as "Her" is, which is to say they're using the science fiction possible future to help bend the rules of reality to try to sell the story, with mixed

I went in with no prior knowledge of the film. Even after actively wanting to go in blank, the points were quite predictable. There were possibly a few red herrings but its hard to tell if these are intentional or accidental.

Visually, this film can be quite stunning. There is a mix of the mundane normality of life with moments of near-future sprinkled throughout but enough recognizable to keep things grounded. It feels realistically 'within our lifetimes'.

The score in this film is ok, a bit airy but it does its job. The problem with the score is when it is essentially blasted out at times. This can be a bit jarring the times when its unwarranted. However, the times it peaks at the right times, alongside the visuals or story reasons, can be very powerful indeed. The sound balancing seems to be all over the place, with one scene in a 'bumping' nightclub where two characters have to shout-talk followed by a scene of whispering. The score doesnt exactly help as often it is cranked up way too high to try to give it an appearance of kind of floating dreamlike quality. It often feels like they have the wrong slider bars up and down where they need to be reversed.

The story is... fine? Its kind of like 'Her' mixed with a drop of 'Ex Machina' with less existential dread for the humans and more for the androids. It feels like the story of 'Her' where the focus was on the AI vs the human character. The story honestly doesnt have very much to say.

Its plot crawls along at a snails pace for most of the movie, so if you're expecting action or dramatic dialogue, you'll be in for a bad time. What plot there is slowly unfolds along with the love and loss that the main characters deal with. There are a few sprinkles of side plot but these threads are left mostly dangling, with perhaps a line or two of dialogue attempting to close the plot holes but doing so very poorly. The rare side plots there are seem kind of abandoned around the mid point of the movie. In a way this feels like two scripts forced into the same movie with one taking place in the first half of the movie and the other script kicking in for most of the second.

Zoe feel like a bit of a mix between a date movie and definitely NOT a date movie, depending on how cerebral you/your date is. In the end, it lands on 'date movie' with how things turned out, quite happy to end sappy.

I was about to suggest that they could have made a better movie if they trimmed this down only to see that its 103 minutes. It felt like over 2 hours to me honestly! I'm shocked its so short yet feels so long. Maybe as a 15m short film it would have been better?

Zoe isnt horrible, far from it. However, aside from the moral question of "is it ok for a dude and a robochick to love", theres not much more there. Despite how lovely Zoe can, that in and of itself is not enough to elevate the movie beyond a passable 6/10.

A personal opinion is the same I have for a lot of AI movies. They create ultra-smart AI that is capable of acting and moving like a human and is all but indistinguishable from other humans but come with the benefits of being able synthetic, which means they dont eat or sleep, should have better reflexes and vision than any human, and should have the ability well beyond that of any human, yet they're relegated to companionship appliances as opposed to real-world uses they would do. If there were synthetic humanoid androids that were advanced enough to fool most people, they would quickly replace almost all jobs, leaving humanity left to their own devices.

The film is a character piece, mostly, with very good acting from McGregor, Seydoux and Theo James. The subject, an exploration of identity and relationships in a world where robots will soon look and feel like humans and there are pills that can recreate the feeling of falling in love for the first time. However, the ideas in the film were ridiculously simplistic, both in the technical realm and the emotional one. It felt like a weaker version of Her (if that is even possible) with the operating system replaced by robots. And then the issue is not how humans feel, but how the robots feel. It felt uneven, a botched attempt to capitalize on the success of other AI related films, but without the novelty or the desire to make you think. A movie version of the drug in the film that manipulates your emotions so you feel something romantic for just a few hours.

In fact, I am going to contradict the title. I believe it is what they wanted to achieve, but what they got was Her bridged with Pinocchio. Ouch! If it weren't for the decent performances of the main actors, this would have failed in a bad and boring way.

I kind of get that many here likes this, but on the other hand I don't. I didn't feel the romance between McGregor and Seydoux at all (in other Doremus' movies it has been the opposite). Also the scifi / AI aspect didn't offer anything we haven't seen in the past years and many of those other movies have done it with deeper results. Of course everyone has their own opinion, but I can't say with straight face that this one could compete with Ex Machina, Her, Westworld, Upgrade etc. on quality. Then there are the songs, ok couple of them hits the spot, but mr. Doremus has the habit to put waaaay too many on his films, and often they can even ruin the mood. Editing also hurt the eyes few times. All in all I think it's very average, I would rather watch Doremus' Equals, that made me feel at least something.

The slow pacing will turn off many, but the story and implications of the subject matter fascinated me so much that I watched it a second time, this time through the eyes of knowing what was going to happen.

Don't really know how to describe this, but I keep going back to it.

Music similar to Vangellis, synthetic beings and emotions. It feels like Blade Runner, but without action, epic lines, futuristic worlds and people hunting synthetics.

So what is left? There's a great cast. They really do discuss relationships between people and synthetics a lot, lots of moody moments and things to ponder. However, unlike other romantic films I didn't really care if they got together. Zoe whether a real person or synthetic is physically beautiful, but the conversation between her and Ewan McGregors character is all whispery and lacking in flirtatiousness. Was this meant to be? If so she played it perfectly, but either way the romance is neither here nor there. There's no action so overall this film is just a bit long and odd.

If you liked such movies as "A.I. Artificial Intelligence" (2001), "Bicentennial Man" (1999), "Her" (2013) - you will love this movie too! Exciting, beautiful, romantic, it seems that about future which is near or maybe already here.

I rated this a 6 because it was professionally done. I personally did not enjoy it I am not a romance buff...with that said the story line was just that a romance. Nothing new at all except the girl was futuristic. I am very cautious not to put in spoilers so if you are a scifi person I think you will be disappointed.

'Her' meets 'Blade Runner' in this overly-derivative tale of an inventor of AI 'synethetics' who falls in love with his own creation. The story touches on how we willingly humanise technology for our own human desires, and how tolerance and acceptance might be extended to non-human life forms - and how they, in their evolving emotional intelligence, might tolerate, accept and pity us. But is it love? These are all interesting questions, but ultimately remain under-developed in this movie which fails to fully mine the heady themes it sets up. The narrative seems too obsessed with tribute nods to Blade Runner - mechanical voiced surveys, synthetics as sex toys, memory implants - and less interested in pushing its characters and questions to extremes in order to surprise and disturb. As a result, it fails the plausibility test that such futuristic stories undergo. It isn't convincing. At no point did I think, 'Yes, this is what we could become.' And that is where the film differs from Her and Blade Runner. This is a familiar story of boy meets girl, gets girl, loses girl, tries to win her back. The sentimental music is overly-manipulative. It's a teary love story, with light sci-fi decorations in the frame. Beautifully shot, and has decent acting performances, but ultimately bland and disappointing.

This film tells the story of a woman who finds out she is different from the rest.

The plot of interesting because it makes you think. It makes you reflect on interpersonal relationships and romantic relationships. It stimulates thoughts on how the society and technology will evolve. It challenges ethical boundaries. It is quite a captivating story.

This is a good story; a close and personal examination of love and loss and artificial love. I agree with some of the criticisms from other IMDB users: it's slow-paced, doesn't bring much that's startlingly new to AI genre, Ewan McGregor's character was dull and dreary, and there was a lack of chemistry between the two leads. Still, I found it entertaining. There is a some interesting AI-perspective dialogue and had the above-mentioned attributes been in place, it would have been a great film. But I can definitely see that it's not for everyone.

A decent enough movie...conceptually. And that's about it.

I really don't think the casting is right. Lea Seydoux just doesn't do it for me. She's either too deadpan or too weepy and it's not the character...it's just how she plays it. The rest of the cast is also, neither here nor there, except for Theo James who really is quite good.

The first half works great; the second half was all over the place. The cinematography is inconsistent, erratic and fuzzy, which doesn't help the texture of the narrative. The editing is also not helpful and the music is utterly unbearable.

Ignore the critics' reviews. Indeed, don't read them. Avoid spoilers.

Found it to be beautiful, lyrical, well performed and fresh. There's a stretch 2/3 of the way in that could profitably have been edited down, resulting in a crisper 90 minutes run time and a tighter film.

Still, it was moving.

Make up your mind yourself.

As others have said, if you've seen 'Ex Machina', or 'AI', or especially 'Her', you've pretty much seen this already. The two leads are good, Ewan McGregor particularly, but there's very little new to see here, and there's some rather fantastical plotholes and implausibilities too. With a few more details there are ways the ending could actually have made sense, and it would have been a better story for it. But we don't get them, so it doesn't, and it's not.

I have to say, I'm finding something a little troubling about this recent push to sob over the proposed internal love lives of hypothetical future machines, at the same point in history we are most alienated from and distrustful of the countless real-life lonely human beings we are all living alongside. I understand the subject seems like a rich new vein for writers to tap into, but taking the side of artificial machines over the human race seems to speak of a terrible god-shaped hole in 21st century humanity more than any great leap of artistic empathy.

First off the movie is long and slow but it's gorgeous and thoughtful and posits a number of ideas related to AI and human/machine relationships once we've figured out how to surpass the uncanny valley and create unmistakably human like androids. How will they feel? Will they love, can we love them? What is love anyway? Both Ewan Macgregor and Lea Seydoux are stellar as they explore love, jealousy and loss between human and sentient machine. If you're patient and thoughtful, a very rewarding film.

From the first half-an-hour or so, the concept seems to be pretty interesting and the characters are well-made. But the overusing of music, hopping between moods of the soundtrack every second scene and a very specific, obnoxious at times style of music ruins the immersion. If you can ignore that, you'll probably have a decent time watching it.

Ewan McGregor and Lea Seydoux have no chemistry. At all. I'm not sure if that is due to Lea Seydoux beguiling ways though, as I have seen her one other time, and she doesn't seem to resonate with me.

Another point of this movie, is almost that a "synthetic woman" is of more use than a synthetic man. Due to the fact that many men have trouble getting a woman to show them attention, hence why synthetic women would be more appealing than synthetic men (unless of course it was in the construction or heavy labour force I would imagine).

Also a point that always bugs me in these movies.... the robot, synthetic human etc always has feelings that you are meant to care about. They are implanted feelings and/or born out of pretend experiences.... so they are either fake or the feelings of someone else....not theirs/robot. So.......

Someone mentioned "power imbalance" on here between subject and creator... THEY ARE A ROBOT.... Seriously?? #robotlivesmatter #robotrights Obviously the ACTUAL human is going to have REAL feelings as they are HUMAN. So feel something for them if anything(ie. Ewan McGregor's character)... And yes I know it's a movie so nothing is technically real, but yeah... Anyway. Crap movie...

This movie is absolutely worth watching, probably more than once. Excellent story. Excellent performances. Just a beautifully done film.