Today’s quick review: Tau. Julia (Maika Monroe), a pickpocket saving up for a better life, is abducted from her home and locked in a cell by Alex (Ed Skrein), a genius who plans to run experiments on Julia to perfect his latest project. Her only companion is Tau (Gary Oldman), a prototype AI tasked with keeping her imprisoned. With the project deadline looming, Julia must outwit her captors and find a way to escape before she runs out of time.
Tau is a minimalistic sci-fi thriller about artificial intelligence. The title character is an advanced but flawed AI system designed by Alex to manage his home, including its security. It’s also the only thing standing between Julia and freedom. Tau offers a fairly interesting sci-fi premise, albeit one that has been explored in other movies. The quality of execution is high enough to tell its story well, but the movie lacks anything to set it apart.
Tau sets up its story well. Julia’s captivity is a ready source of tension. Alex’s house is an interesting setting with well-defined rules and boundaries for Julia to work with. The characters and conflicts are clearly established, while the cast’s solid acting is enough to bring its story to life. The film also dips its toes into the issues surrounding humanlike AI, although it doesn’t delve deep enough to say anything profound.
But the crux of the movie is the relationship between Julia and Tau, and this is where the writing begins to show cracks. The broad strokes of the relationship are fine: sensing an opportunity, Julia introduces Tau to the concept of personhood and teaches it about the world outside Alex’s house. But the particulars are clumsy. The film assumes a closer bond between Tau and Julia than it actually shows, and the script is merely workmanlike.
Tau has just enough going on to interest dedicated fans of the sci-fi genre, but the movie doesn’t offer enough to give it broad appeal. Give it a shot only if you’re interested in stories about AI for their own sake. For a minimalistic sci-fi thriller with a similar premise, check out Ex Machina. For a budget sci-fi movie about a man trying to outwit his AI jailer, check out Infinity Chamber. For a thriller about escaping a maniac, try Split.
5.7 out of 10 on IMDB. I give it a 6.0 to 6.5 for a decent premise and craftsmanship that don’t amount to anything too special.