Shailene Woodley and Jack Whitehall play selfish people and their dutiful robot doubles in this sci-fi comedy.
Jack Whitehall made a big splash in Hollywood in 2021 with substantial roles in Jungle Cruise and Clifford the Big Red Dog – and he has followed those up with the lacklustre Robots.
The sci-fi comedy is set in Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2032, when immigrants have been kicked out of the U.S. and their jobs have been filled by robots.
Whitehall plays the rich and spoiled Charles, who never lifts a finger because he can get his illegal robot double – C2 – to do it all for him.
Charles spends his days chilling at home while C2 goes to work, takes care of the house and goes on dates on his behalf.
Enter Elaine (Shailene Woodley), who also has a secret robot double – but she uses her to have sex with men so she can exploit them for cash and luxury goods.
One day, C2 and E2 fall in love and decide to leave their masters before realising they can go one better and take over their lives.
Robots has a wonderful concept and fun plot turns but the execution is messy, chaotic, and nowhere near as funny as it should have been.
This should have been a laugh-a-minute but all the jokes and silly setpieces awkwardly fall flat.
It felt like writers/directors Ant Hines and Casper Christensen didn’t know what to do with their idea so it all goes wrong after a promising start.
They choose to pursue the romantic comedy route, which is tricky because Charles and Elaine are awful humans who hate each other’s guts most of the time.
It is reasonable that these very selfish people learn to become part of a team but taking it to a romance level is a step too far.
Woodley has never done a comedy before and it’s a shame she picked this film to flex that muscle. It was amusing to see her as a shallow gold-digger but the material was beneath her and she deserved better.
Whitehall is a comedy pro but his lazy character is seriously annoying. He doesn’t stray too far from his public persona; using his British accent without reason among an American cast also flagged that he was just playing himself.
Both of them try to do what they can to bring life to the story but it doesn’t work – the writing and direction aren’t good enough.
On Prime Video from Friday 7th July.
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