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The Alpha Test_360P

This movie is not about a robot. It's about human beings being human. Remember Star Trek? Not just the first one, but ALL of them? In every version of Star Trek there is a character who works in some way as a reflector of the human condition. Spock, 7-of-9, Kes, Data, Q, each of these characters constantly questioned every human about their reasoning and behavior, and ultimately strove (Data especially) to become more human, and in so doing forced other humans to examine and define their humanness. Alpha is exactly the same sort of character, except she makes even less sense than any of the others. The great Sci-Fi writer Isaac Asimov conjectured that any autonomous robot ever built would have to be built with three primary directives in place. These directives became known as "Asimov's Laws." First Law A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. Second Law A robot must obey the orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. Third Law A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws. While not openly cited, the spirit of these three laws is still commonplace in popular Sci-Fi movies about androids, but here in this film they seem to be lacking. Alpha has no concept of what it means to harm anyone or anything, which is and of itself a gigantic plot hole. No company would ever produce an autonomous entity that is capable of harming other people and simply put it into people's homes without even the most basic understanding of how human beings behave. Very silly on its face. It's like giving children a loaded gun and admonishing them not to get hurt with it. And getting back to the human-mirror part, Alpha receives several conflicting orders from each human she associates with, and cannot make sense of the illogical reasoning and irrational emotions of her human owners, and thusly turns inward for her own answers. A classic "flawed humanity" tale in the same spirit as every season of "The Outer Limits," where about 80% of the episodes ended with the destruction of Earth on account of some basic human failing. Bad costuming and special effects aside, this tale could have had some merit. After all, I have cited three very successful shows/novelists who were successful using the same idea. But unfortunately this film is poorly acted and scripted. The human characters involved are completely shallow and deliberately expose their flaws to the robot and the audience, ostensibly to get us to side with the robot I suppose. The robot is completely unbelievable, not only from the acting and costuming, but as a character itself. From the very get-go she does not behave as a robot would, and she has feeeeeelings? Riiight. I wanted to like this movie, I love low budget inventiveness, but unfortunately this movie is just simply not well done. Plus the blood looks like teriyaki sauce.