T.I.M. -- B.A.D.

Review by Joseph Fayed

Did you know that AI could be evil? But I'm not talking about AI being used for sinister purposes; I mean artificial intelligence becoming its own supervillain. T.I.M. shows us how that is possible by stripping its script of any identity to separate itself within the good tech gone bad genre. 

The film follows Abi, an engineer who moves to the countryside with her husband, Mark, to work for a robotics company. She begins working on the company's latest project, T.I.M., which stands for Technologically Integrated Manservant. Trouble quickly arises when T.I.M. oversteps his boundaries and becomes obsessed with Abi, willing to do anything to please her. 

Cinema has yet to fully explore different ways to ground your film in reality when it's centered around the dangers of AI. A "serious" thriller should be capable of producing just that. Unfortunately, its human characters and their issues with each other aren't compelling enough for any sort of narrative. Our main couple, Abi and Mark, have experienced a marital crisis. But that's the most we learn about either of them. For T.I.M. to make his way into their lives, not much has to happen for him to grasp how Abi and Mark are so divided. It makes the plot have incredibly low stakes because you know precisely how T.I.M. will use their relationship against them. ​

The performances from our three leads ranged from average to community theater. Eamon Farren captures the stoic essence of T.I.M. quite well based solely on his one facial expression. His mannerisms are just like how the other actors move, though, so I'll give him props for taking direction and not going overboard with a stiff performance. Georgina Campbell and Mark Rowley can't convincedly have tension. They act as if the rift between them is over misplaced car keys. Their lack of trust doesn't make up for Abi and Mark suffering from a lack of personality. T.I.M. himself can't even carry the heavyweight because he's too infatuated with a bland protagonist. 

T.I.M. is a poorly made attempt to cash in on the fears many have with AI. If they wanted to explore that successfully, they could have easily leaned into dark comedy and created another M3GAN or, as Disney Channel OGs recall, Smart House. The last shot seemingly rips off the ending of M3GAN, too, but without the same iconic build-up. What makes those films better is they know how to pit humans and AI against each other creatively. The repeated tropes make the plot boring and don't add any excitement. Maybe the biggest fear society should have about technology is when lazy screenwriters use ChatGPT prompts to get their work greenlit. 

T.I,M. hits VOD on January 12.

Rating: 1/5​