Tau (2018)

I appreciate Netflix's effort on original science fiction. Tau is their latest original science fiction movie. It got moderate praise in social media. It was compared to Ex Machina. This has mad scientist, they are in his house and there is AI but other than that this isn't like Ex Machina. This felt more like The Human Centipede. I haven't seen those movies and never will but I have seen few reviews and know more about them than I want to know. It reminded me what I think Human Centipede movies are.

Mad scientist has captured three people for scientific experiments. He keeps them locked in his basement. Movie is them trying to escape mad scientist's house and AI which controls the house. It is more about horror than science fiction. At least about first half hour. Then AI takes bigger role. Movie feels longer than it is. It is because there is almost nothing to tell.

After first twenty minutes or something like that movie sets to what it will be until the end. There isn't much new information after that point or major changes in characters. In Ex Machina there were mind games and you didn't what was going to happen. Here you knew mad scientist will kill test subjects after tests if they can't escape before that. It is just waiting for how and if they will escape.

I was surprised to find out Ed Skrein who played mad scientist was Francis from Deadpool. I checked what else he had done and Deadpool was one of his previous movies. He is good actor but his character was written to be too one dimensional or it was direction. I think he did what was asked from him.

Tau is one of those movies with interesting premise but which doesn't quite deliver. It went too much into horror territory for my liking. It gets better by the end but first half is quite drag. Ed Skrein is best part but movie gets more interesting when AI is in bigger role. This would have been really good hour long episode in anthology series. Over one and half hours needed more depth than what we got.