The Stream: Unoriginal and feels 5 or so years too late.

The Big Screen: A couple decent jump scares.

The Final Bill: An unorginal story makes for a pretty bland movie.

– Trip Fontaine
Director: Chris Weitz
Writers: Chris Weitz
Stars: John Cho, Katherine Waterston, Keith Carradine, Havana Rose Liu,
Genre: Horror, Mystery, Sci-Fi, Thriller
Rating: PG-13 for sexual material, some strong violence, some strong language, and thematic material
Runtime: 1 hour 16 minutes
Production Companies: Columbia Pictures, Blumhouse Productions, Depth of Field
Platform: In theaters on August 30, 2024
Notable Trailers: Joker: Folie a Deux, Venom: The Last Dance, Saturday Night

Hey, Streamers! It’s nearing the end of the summer movie season, which means it’s time for the dumping ground. Thus, we have AfrAId. In this Blumhouse Production, Curtis (John Cho) is a marketing executive whose family is chosen to test a smart home AI called AIA. While his family integrates AIA in their lives, Curtis gets skeptical of the AI’s influence over his household. As AIA begins to exhibit some extraordinary abilities, things get complicated. Scary masks, bumps in the night and digital hijinks ensue.

The biggest problem with AfrAId is that it lacks originality. In fact, it feels like a movie that should have come out 5-10 years ago. There have already been so many versions of movies where AI become sentient and sinister. Unfortunately, AfrAId adds nothing new to the canon of those movies. There are great fears about smart home devices and a good scary movie could be made based on those fears, but this movie is not it. The other issue here is that the movie isn’t scary or creepy or disturbing because it only depicts the fears people already have. There are a few weird jumps scares that add a jolt of energy, but that’s not enough to make a movie actually scary.

The best part of this movie is that it moves at a pretty good pace. It is mercifully short despite the fact that it kind of repeats the same issues over and over again. AfrAId would be fine to play in the background at home but definitely not essential theater viewing.

Ultimately, AfrAId is just another movie playing on our fears of sentient AI, but it doesn’t really add anything new to the conversation. It’s moderately entertaining with few jump scares, and it doesn’t earn the label of horror or thriller, though it tries. This movie might be a good watch at home as long as you unplug your Alexa. Grab a handful of popcorn when this comes out on streaming.