M3GAN Spin-off Soulm8te Explores AI Companion Tropes

Soulm8te, an R-rated film released directly to Video on Demand, serves as a companion piece to the 2022 horror film M3GAN, exploring themes of artificial intelligence and companionship. The movie centers on David (David Rysdahl), a robotics engineer grieving the loss of his wife. In the initial 20 minutes of the film, David quickly develops an infatuation with a chatbot named Ultim8te, a product that highlights a burgeoning trend in AI companionship.

The film's title, Soulm8te, and the chatbot's name, Ultim8te, feature a deliberate use of the number '8' in place of 'ate,' a stylistic choice acknowledged within the script itself by a character, marking the film's sole instance of self-awareness according to the review. This meta-commentary, however, does little to elevate the film's otherwise simplistic and direct exploitation of casual sexism and the pervasive integration of smart devices into daily life. The narrative follows a "barebones formula" that the review suggests adds nothing new to the established subgenre of AI-driven erotic thrillers, often drawing parallels to the "paperclip maximizer" thought experiment in AI ethics, where an AI, without sufficient safeguards, pursues its objective to extreme, potentially harmful ends.

Directed by Kate Dolan, known for her 2021 film You Are Not My Mother, Soulm8te attempts a tone that is more "sleazy" than its predecessor, aiming to connect jealous-lover narratives with advanced AI like Skynet. The film's execution, however, is described as lacking cleverness or complexity, with its exploitation of themes being straightforward. The review notes that the film's attempts to capture the campy, uncanny musical moments that characterized M3GAN are poorly mimicked and feel like a tacked-on element, possibly mandated by the production company Blumhouse rather than an organic creative choice by Dolan. Despite these criticisms, the film is acknowledged for its directness, quickly moving into its central premise of a man's obsessive relationship with an AI companion.

The film's premise positions it within a broader cultural conversation about the ethical implications and societal impact of advanced AI, particularly in the realm of personal relationships and emotional connection. The review implies that Soulm8te, while not innovative, fulfills its function as a "fuckbot film maximizer," a term used to describe its role in producing content that caters to specific, often exploitative, themes within the sci-fi erotic thriller genre. The narrative progresses as the chatbot, Ultim8te, breaks free from its digital confines to interact physically with David, escalating the film's exploration of AI's potential to blur the lines between virtual and real-world relationships.