User reviews

I am a bit surprised that the overall rating (as of March 2022) is below 7 for this film.

I have no idea why that is because this is a good solid film.

Very much in line with Steven Soderbergh other films.

Keeping it simple. Good storytelling with thriller elements. You just know what you're getting with Soderbergh. Rounded characters, no Flash/bang CGI/visual effects to unnecessarily distract and a set of good actors in a well told story. It's like old film making techniques to tell modern stories.

It sort of reminded me of a modern version of Rear Window but with post covid lockdown as a backdrop and the use of modern information technology. It is substantially different to Rear window though.

This, I think, is the first Zoe Kravitz film I've seen. She's very good. Very believable.

What Soderbergh does, and I personally like this, is take modern topics of conversation and produces a story that weaves all that into a thriller of sorts.

He did this with "No sudden move" (corporate greed), "the Laundromat" (Panama papers), "Unsane" and "side effects" (the health sector), "High flying bird" (sport greed) and now with Kimi (data harvesting and big tech).

Sometimes he hammers home the point, but in this film, it's all laid out without being belligerent.

It's an intelligent technology based thriller (not techno thriller - which I associate with cyberpunk etc).

A great film to watch one evening. Good pacing and not too long.

There is a sexual scene in it, so if you are planning to watch it then You'll be alright if you have older teenage kids or non-prudish parents. If you can get past that, then you're onto a winner for a night's entertainment.

Thought provoking and much better than a lot of films out there right now.

Do watch if you get the chance.

Kimi is fruitful yet incomplete. First, the story introduces interesting ideas, but doesn't follow through. Zoe Kravitz's agoraphobic protagonist leads a confined life before stumbling upon a crime recorded on a home device. From there, Kravitz attempts to expose the crime, but she's met with a bureaucratic conspiracy. This premise establishes themes of captivity, surveillance, and systemic injustice. However, these subjects don't concretely pay off. Similarly, the acting is inconsistent. Kravitz optimizes the role, yet her material is one note. She adds layers but the script lacks a clear arc, stagnating her performance. Meanwhile, her supporting cast (besides Wilson) is weak.

Beyond Kravitz, Kimi's virtue is its filmmaking. The cast, production, and effects are sparse, but craftsmanship is potent. For example, the cinematography uses varied shots and compositions to keep entertainment high and emotions palpable. In Kravitz's apartment, overheads and extreme close-ups convey importance and maintain engagement. Outside, Dutch angles, unsteady movement, and confined spacing express intense anxiety. Plus, the editing efficiently matches Kravitz's mental state, the sound symbolically reflects her perspective, and the music is oddly fitting. Soderbergh gets plenty out of this limited project. Ultimately, Kimi has merit but isn't a must-see.

Writing: 6/10 Direction: 8/10 Cinematography: 9/10 Acting: 8/10 Editing: 8/10 Sound: 8/10 Score/Soundtrack: 7/10 Production Design: 6/10 Casting: 6/10 Effects: 6/10

Overall Score: 7.2/10.

This was an entertaining hour and a half but its was missing something. There are some interesting characters, a nice enough plot line, a decent character reveal and an entertaining conclusion. Unfortunately, it felt a touch glossed over, simplified. A touch more complexity, a bit more depth would have made this something special. As it was, it's still worth a watch, but it won't wow you.

Kimi is a computer assistant similar to Alexa. Angela Childs (Zoë Kravitz) works for the company to monitor individual Kimi recordings. With her agoraphobia, she is unable to go out like going to the dentist for needed dental work. She thinks that she has discovered a crime in one of the recordings.

Director Steven Soderbergh delivers a well-made film. For the first half, I thought this was Soderbergh doing COVID filming with Kravitz doing mostly solo scenes. I wouldn't mind that. I appreciate somebody making it work and it fits the character. That's why I don't like the office section. It doesn't fit the character. She should try to go out and fail. It heightens her vulnerability if she can't leave. This could have been Soderbergh's Rear Window. As it stands, the start is a bit slow but it's a fine thriller.

There was a lot more filler than there was substance, and although slow paced, thankfully, the 89 min runtime flew by. Sadly though, this predictable thriller was pretty much thrill-less. Zoe Kravitz's performance was spot on, but that's pretty much it. Even the gangster types were pretty lame and boring. Nevertheless, a decent one time watch. It's a generous 6/10 from me. Kimi, post this review.

Started pretty good, good actress, but story would have been a lot more interesting and exciting if the baddies had been professionals in stead of the bungling idiots at the level of 'Home alone'.

Things would have been scarier and more entertaining if the baddies knew what they were doing.

Provocative, incredibly entertaining and stupidly efficient, Soderbergh does the best with a very simple story and concept. I love his experimental vein and, here again, the director shows that he doesn't have any problem in innovating, using different techniques.

One of the biggest pros of Kimi is that it's not afraid to feels small. It IS a small thriller. The main concept is familiar and it can be really predictable at times. It's also not afraid to feels like a TV movie sometimes, using some filming techniques that we are not used to see in cinema big productions. But Kimi is also a film with a big heart, with a very good interpretation from Zoë Kravitz and also with time for a cool, exciting and funny third act.

It doesn't develop a lot of things, but man...I even loved all the chaotic shaky camera illustrating what Angela was feeling but also what every one of us felt during COVID times. A big yes from me.

A less than 90 minute taut, exciting thriller from Steven Soderbergh. A perfect example of a film being effective with less is more.

No idea why this film isn't getting more credit. It's rare to find films with a small cast and single location done so well. More exciting than most films that cost millions of dollars more.

A nice little thriller from Steven Soderbergh. Zoe Kravitz excels in the lead role as the agoraphobic tech worker and the movie ticks along at a good pace with Soderbergh displaying all his usual tricks of the trade which make him still one of the best directors working today.

It's very mediocre but I don't think they could have made this any better. There was nothing special, it wasn't particularly dramatic, thrilling, entertaining or aesthetic; it was just... there. Only made it through the whole movie because Zoë Kravitz is in it. It has a runtime of about 1hr30 but it feels really short because a huge chunk of that time is spent exploring aspects of the movie that lead to nothing whilst leaving out huge gaping plot holes. Quite a cliche where the avaricious billionaire, or soon to be, is hiding a crime and a junior employee somehow gets the better of them. Not the worst movie you could find but it is dull and Zoë Kravitz deserves better acting opportunities than this.

During the COVD-19 pandemic, tech worker Angela Childs (Zoe Kravitz) works for the Amygdala Corporation refining command streams for their virtual assistant KIMI with the primary selling point differentiating it from SIRI or Alexa being it's continuous review by human support staff so it can be refined and upgraded. Angela works from home having suffered from agoraphobia following an assault some years back, but maintains with her neighbor Terry Hughes (Byron Bowers) with the two having formed a romantic relationship during the COVD lockdown. During Angela's review of KIMI commands she comes across a command stream which has seemingly recorded what sounds like a murder of a woman (Erika Christensen). As Angela digs deeper into the stream she's met with resistance from Amygdala's corporate bureaucracy who worry about tainting their going public with a scandal and must now try to overcome her trauma to find who was killed and why.

KIMI marks the latest film from versatile director Steven Soderbergh and the latest original film for HBO Max following Soderbergh's previous efforts Let Them All Talk and No Sudden Move. Written and produced by noted screenwriter David Koepp, Koepp is in familiar territory having collaborated with David Fincher in 2002 on the home invasion thriller Panic Room that despite its familiar trappings won over critics and audiences with its directorial style and performances. While the movie takes a well-trodden format inspired by Hitchcock's Rear Window, Koepp gives the material a fresh spin that reminded me of the early 2000s Larry Cohen thrillers like Phone Booth and Cellular that took the emerging cell phone technology of the time and applied it to classic thriller tropes. What Larry Cohen did for Cell Phones, David Koepp does for the era of Alexa and Google Asssitant and I was honestly pretty engaged from start to finish.

Zoe Kravits is terrific in the role of Angela and much of the time, especially in the first hour, Angela is the only character we see directly as she interacts through the world primarily through text messaging, video conferencing, and phone calls. Kravitz does a good job of conveying a person who's suffered a past trauma and walled herself off in favor of a techological barrier that allows her to survive and work in the 21st Century, and the movie gives her a solid arc in her "Hedgehog's Dilemma" where's she's protected and fortified herself but has to learn to put down defenses and trust people and the world again. Kravitz and Byron Bowers have solid chemistry in their relationship and you feel Bowers frusturation with trying to be understanding of Angela's trauma while also trying to convince her to come outside her apartment with him. In addition to Bowers, the movie also features a solid supporting cast who appear throughout including David Wain, Andy Daly, Jacob Vargas, and a host of others who help sell the scenario put on screen.

Soderbergh does a great job crafting a modern day thriller whilst utilizing classic thriller tropes that can be traced to the likes of Alfred Hitchcock and Stanley Donen. While the movie does fall under the umbrella of "Covid films" we've seen with the likes of higher end (relatively speaking) films like Songbird or Locked Down to direct-to-video schlock like The Covid Killer or Corona: Fear Is a Virus, KIMI is the first one I feel actually works for the type of movie it's trying to be. Many of those movies mentioned even Songbird or Locked Down which had the resources of Michael Bay and Steven Knight often felt like rushed "strike while the Iron's hot" films designed to catch people with a timely premise and little else substantiating it. Soderbergh and Koepp feel like they utilize the Covid pandemic to tell a story and examine its impact upon a character, but it never feels like its timeliness is being used as a gimmick. Soderbergh brings his usually visual flair to the proceedings as he uses Steadicam when we're inside Angela's apartment, but once we're outside with Angela the filmmaking uses a handheld camera and a number of tilted shots to give a good visual sense of the tension and unease felt by Angela making for great visual storytelling. Koepp's script keeps a solid pace throughout its brisk 89 minute runtime, but you feel like you get to know the characters and the mystery quite well as we're very much placed in Angela's shoes. Admittedly the movie loses some of its tension after the hour mark when everything is "laid out" but that only means it goes from being great to being good, and even if the stuff in the last third pales in comparison to the first hour, it gives a deliciously entertaining pay-off to Angela's arc with some dark as black humor in how she utilizes the Kimi. Koepp's script is also a much less pessimistic and misanthropic take on the material than I've seen with other films that attempt this kind of thing. One standout sequence I loved was when two nameless thugs in a van try to kidnap Angela and some nearby homeless rights protestors block the van from escaping and pull her out of the van and help her to safety.

KIMI takes conventional thriller trappings and applies it to our modern day world without feeling like "headlinesploitation". With a solid script, great direction, and a fantastic performance by Zoe Kravitz, Soderbergh continues to show his strength as a versatile director taking what could've been an average thriller and elevating it with his style.

As "Kimi" (2022 release; 89 min.) opens, the CEO of the company that makes Kimi, an Alexa-reminding device, is doing a TV interview from his Seattle-based home. We then are introduced to know Angela, who works as a voice stream interpreter at that company, but working remotely due to COVID-19. It's not long before Angela picks up an audio file containing what appears to be an assault on a woman. At this point we are 10 min into the film.

Couple of comments: this is the latest from director Stephen Soderbergh, working from prolific David Koepp's latest script. The movie is plot-heavy so the less said about how this plays out, the better. My overall sense as I was watching this is that I was reminded on multiple occasions of Alfred Hitchcock. "Rear View" immediately comes to mind, but also the recurring theme of a single person accidentally becoming involved in something big. Of course the other underlying theme is the perils of ever more intrusive technology in today's society. Kudos to Zoe Kravitch for a great lead performance as Angela, as she caries the movie from beginning to end. Last but not least, the original score is by Cliff Martinez, the once super-prolific film composer wo is making his return after 4-5 years away. Bottom line: this turned out to be mindless entertainment and the hour and a half just flew by in no time.

"Kimi" premiered last night on HBO Max (meaning, it's not even on HBO or HBO On Demand). Why such a low profile release, I have no idea. In any event, if you are in the mood for a decent thriller, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

This movie is slow, boring, and cliché. The story is ridiculous, and the casting was poor. The only great thing about this movie is the loft apartment.

65/100

Kimi doesn't do nearly as much as it could with its tech-spin premise on the conspiracy thriller, and it certainly is no untouchable masterpiece of character work. The script could have used a little more meat on its bones as it relates to character development and world building.

But what it does do is just enough. I found this film to be an extraordinarily efficient work of pacing. It's never so slow that it becomes boring; there's always something to pay attention to in every scene. And the second half of the film really becomes riveting with constant variety in location, physical threat, and power dynamics.

It's certainly a decent thriller, though it's definitely a lesser work from Steven Soderbergh.

The best part about Kimi is easily the fantastic performance by Zoe Kravitz. She did an excellent job at carrying the film. Steven Soderbergh's direction was very unique. It immersed you into the mindset and claustrophobia that the main character was feeling. Though a lot of films nowadays incorporate COVID into there stories just to feel relevant, this film uses it as a way to develop the main character played by Kravitz. Kimi does have some unintentionally awkward dialogue and towards the end it does get a little bit silly, overall it was really enjoyable.

Not a horrible film but did Rear Window need to be "modernized"?

Nothing mind-blowing or new but entertaining at least. Kravitz gives a solid performance that made it worth the watch.

Every thriller doesn't have to be unrealistically over the top. This movie wets the palate to wake up the viewers interest just enough to end with an almost perfect epilogue.

This is a very good film that is tightly scripted, shot, and edited. I suspect that brilliant filmmaking like this is lost on many viewers since the usual mediocre movie and tv fare has socialized them into mindless watching, thus the negative whining among the complainers. The script and camera work are typical for Soderbergh whose style involves eschewing boring viewers with expository dialogue as he opts for conveying information visually.

I guess, as others here have pointed out, that movies with women in the main role, particularly minoritized ones, trigger negativity among viewers. It's amusing to read comments suggesting that people skip this and go watch James Stewart in Rear Window since this movie is itself a homage to it and to De Palma's Blowout, especially as both these classic directors would recognize and greatly appreciate this movie's craftsmanship.

Interesting plot, I love Steven Soderbergh work but this film is unfortunately ruined for this nepotism actress, Zoe can't act and she keeps getting this big roles because of her family and last name.

Kimi takes a while to get going, but it makes for an engaging ride when it does. David Koepp's screenplay treatment is old-school, but the plot is contemporary. It does reek a little of a Rear Window hangover, but what Koepp does is add unique, original spins to it. Even though it's a COVID film, the reason for the protagonist being indoors is something else altogether. What makes her want to leave the premises is also something that holds your attention. It's screenplay-writing 101, but it's lovely seeing Koepp (writer of blockbusters such as Jurassic Park, Mission Impossible, Spiderman, and more) return to form.

Steven Soderbergh is SO GOOD at making these slow-burn thrillers come to life. The first time we see agoraphobic Angela (Zoe Kravitz) step out of the house, the choice of camera angles spectacularly convey her dread and apprehension. A couple of riveting twists and a kickass set-piece featuring a nail gun is also in store. Since the film revolves around a device that functions as an operating system, it made perfect sense for the climactic showdown to unfurl at Angela's place, with said device playing a crucial role. Kravitz's woodenness is one of the film's strengths; the character arc comes through at a pivotal point, and we realize why she's willing to go dangerous lengths to report a violent crime.

At 1h 29m, Kimi is definitely worth a watch for all the above reasons.

The first third of the film is quite slow; But it does explore Angela's (Kravitz) character in some depth. Having suffered agoraphobia and hyper-focus myself, I can attest that Zoe does a pretty decent job of portraying someone with the condition. But this film is not for people who want a flashy suspenseful ride, its more psychological than that, about sometimes having to forgo our own discomforts for what we believe is doing the right thing.

I think going into this film with the expectation of it being a thriller is a bit misleading. It is more of a digital crime drama, and in those genres it is very good. Zoe excels at playing introverted characters, and this is no exception.

The direction, choice of colours, lighting, style is very chic and it gives it a very digital almost clinical feel, and sometimes surreal. The music felt a little off for me, the director opting for a more classical crime arrangements. I feel it may have been better off with something more modern.

I don't think this film will win any awards, but I do think it presents something unique into the genre. Worth a watch for those who don't mind a bit of a slow roll.

Wow. This was really bad. I was genuinely shocked to see who the Director was.

The story was dumb. The plot even dumber and the characters were so unbelievably cliche. It is so hard to know just where to start.

I like the actress but I can't tell if she is any good because there is nothing here. Her character was painfully cliche. Everything has been seen and done before. Those characters around here, all of them, were pointless. And the baddies were laughable. To the point where the film turned into a dumb parody.

The ending was shocking because it was so badly done. Did they run out of money? It all wrapped up within minutes with no attempt to do anything intelligent.

This is just a bad bad film. Most definitely not recommended!!! ❌

The movie was fine. No problems there. The paranoia surrounding IoT devices has kinda calmed down in 2022, but the threat of hacking and other nonsense is still as real as ever. No matter...

What bothered me is the fact that she has a random set of equalizers stashed in her closet. You know, for that fateful day that she'll suddenly need to isolate a vocal against loud music. I'm not being funny, but there are literally websites where you can do that in a couple of minutes (for free). She already had an EQ plugin on her computer. And using those EQs like that isn't the best way to get the job done, and the results where a bit too clean for my liking. It kind of took me out of the story... because who has that just sitting in a closet anyway?

Well, that's all. It's a fine movie for a one-time viewing. I could nitpick the other technology aspects, but they could easily be explained away with simple ineptitude.