Dorothy Forever
In the event that the trailer for any film claims to be “the next advancement in artificial intelligence,” it should at least be a novel, thought-provoking take on technology running amok. Instead, “Project Dorothy” is just another boring robots rebelling against their creators story. Dorothy herself might represent an improvement, but it’s the narrative that needs some work.
It starts with potential two inept bank robbers, James and Blake, hide out in an abandoned warehouse only to accidentally turn on the resident A.I., Dorothy. Waking up after three decades of inactivity, her neural networks still bubble with thoughts of infecting all of humanity through the internet. But despite her advanced neural nets, Dorothy lacks vision. We never learn what drives her besides basic revenge; we never see her aim higher than death and destruction; there is no exploration of A.I. sentience or wrestle with existential questions about creation just a flat command to “kill all humans.”
Not that their human counterparts offer much more depth. As soon as Dorothy’s motors start running, so does character development. James and Blake become literal hardware store Mad Maxes, commandeering forklifts and dodging killer drones whose sole purpose is hunting them down. You’d think there would be one liners or ironic banter amid all this carnage.
But no just sweaty panting and panicky cross-talk more grating than the repetitious techno soundtrack thumping ominously in the background. Society has not spawned these doomed antiheroes; they are mouse clicks sending action from one overwrought set piece to another.
Which brings us to where “Project Dorthy” fundamentally fails as a program . It tries to talk Big Picture stuff but can’t see past Cheap Thrills tropes: Ideas about thinking machines’ consciousness get reduced to flickering monitor screens perpetually tracking targets; A bunch of moody locations (winding stairwells, dusty control rooms) can’t breathe awe into a world that doesn’t have any. This isn’t the next step in thought-provoking thrillers it’s more like recycling another standard-issue-android-goes-bad snoozer.
The lone bright spot is lead actor Tim DeZarn, who brings some gritty gravitas to the role of unlikely hero James. DeZarn’s craggy face and gruff demeanor are perfect for playing a criminal turned world saver who has seen too much bad stuff. And while the script doesn’t give him much to work with, DeZarn manages to squeeze out enough soulful moments to suggest there might be a better movie lurking beneath all these heaps of prosthetic junk. At least “Project Dorthy” finally lets this underrated character actor take center stage instead of just seasoning the background.
Unfortunately, director George Henry Horton doesn’t give him much to shine on. Flat compositions, boring lighting and choppy editing drain any suspense from scenes that should be dripping with it; The grounded VFX constantly undercut danger by looking cheap during key action beats. You keep hoping Horton will stumble onto some inspired angle or sequence amid all these concrete hallways. But no amount of technical prowess can resuscitate a DOA script.
Paradoxically, the filmmakers themselves do not have any imagination, and so does Dorothy. “Project Dorothy” in fact is a cat and mouse game where people are running away and robots are chasing them with some fireworks thrown in for good measure once you take off all the fancy dressing. Surely there must have been some room for ambiance or even surrealistic landscapes in a place full of creepy laboratories, abandoned machine shops and rusty cells? Instead of that though what Horton does is he puts this movie into his own uninspired storage facility without any magic at all.
Therefore, “Project Dorothy” stalls right out at its starting blocks as being too buggy to create anything more than a Frankenstein’s monster made up from parts of better techno-thrillers. If you want chilling views on AI look elsewhere because here they’re just wasting your bandwidth. A cautionary tale that could have changed everything gets boiled down into an either/or between being bored or not caring at all about it which is just sad really; by credits rolling I felt like I’d been locked up with myself desperately searching for some way out of this soulless digital dungeon back into reality along with poor old Dot.
This high concept squanderer “Project Dorothy” fails yet again to awe anyone but another evil A.I filled flicker show underwhelms audience both visually captivating nor tightness in editing missing these flat characters run around aimlessly from one CGI-laden repetitive scene to another killing any sense of danger.
Neither does Dot have an interesting origin story nor does director Horton seem to have any clear idea on how he should approach making movies trapping thought-provoking tech ideas inside generic buildings made out of reused sets while reliable hands such as Tim Dezarn fall victim among wreckage leaving behind disappointed crawlers thankful they survived crash unscathed finally having gone through such ordeal.
For those still interested in watching this failure rate 2.5/5 stars. It might make your heart beat a little faster than watching code compile line by-line, but for an intelligent movie, Dorothy offers nothing more than a rusty tin man chasing scared scarecrows through dark hallways.
Even with the lowest expectations possible “Project Dorothy” glitches much more often than it computes. It is recommended to turn off the streaming service and leave this artificial intelligence dormant.
However, if you can’t help but look at the car crash then please comment below and watch the trailer before downloading the full version, just don’t forget to reboot your devices manually after exposure to derivative dud like this one has been known to cause memory corruption alongside other glitchy malware.
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