Finch

A nice Hanks, a nice robot and a good dog take a van ride across post-apocalyptic America and get to know each other. The robot learns how to drive and to throw a ball to the dog. Finch is this year’s most clichéd banality in the field of films from which you expect more than just technical perfection. The only interesting, though half-baked, moment of the film is when the robot sees itself in a mirror. It lasts about 20 seconds. (06/11/2021)

A well-crafted film for people who like to be moved by cute little dogs, cute little robots, and Tom Hanks in good-hearted, warmly human mode. Otherwise, kitsch as hell. (06/11/2021)

An optimistic, post-apocalyptic road movie with a subliminal storyline about people all being bastards and so you’d better kill them or run away if you see them. Hanks survived Covid-19, just to be taken out by a solar flare on Sun-28 and an ozone layer full of holes (like Swiss cheese), so he builds a robot to look after his dog when he is no longer around. Because a mega-storm is headed for St. Luis, he packs up his stuff, robot and dog, and heads for San Franscisco to see the Golden Gate Bridge before he dies. This picture that everybody and nobody will like is rather clichéd, but alternates moods (from over-the-top joy to pessimistic depression) unexpectedly naturally. The robot’s whistles in tried and tested Number 5/Wall-E style is fun and Hanks’ stern scolding that often presents the main human protagonist as an anti-social asshole acts as a dark counterbalance. Sapochnik’s fairly original approach is enhanced by several catastrophes that the heroic threesome come up against on the journey.  It certainly could have been approached from a different direction and called it Jeff and looked at bringing a robot to life, using the potential of the material to the full (and make it three hours long), but the storyline about coming to terms with death also has its positive side. (11/11/2021)

For the entire (unjustifiably long) running time, I couldn't tune in to the simultaneously unstimulating stylisation of robot uncle, dog and family escapades like Short Circuit and Wall-E and the hopeless post-apocalypse where man becomes wolf like in The Road. And the standard good (however routine) performance of Hans together with the solid pace and visuals doesn't save much. (07/11/2021)