Time Is Running Out to Stream Megan Fox’s Criminally Underrated Sci-Fi Thriller (That’s Not Jennifer’s Body)

It seems hard to wrap one’s mind around, but we really are coming up on the end of May and while that means the start of summer for many, it means the end of the line for a lot of offerings on various streaming platforms. With the calendar page about to turn again, we’re about to see an influx of new movies and television shows, which means that there are great films that will depart—including some underrated films that you might not have seen before. That’s the case for a criminally underappreciated Megan Fox sci-fi thriller. It’s about to leave Netflix in just a few more days and no, it’s not Jennifer’s Body.

Leaving Netflix on May 30th is Subservience. Released in 2024, Subservience was a box office flop making less than $300,000 against a budget of approximately $5 million and was met with mixed reviews that felt like the film’s ending was a bit weak, but in watching the movie again it’s clear that there was a lot more going on than critics initially gave it credit for and now, two years later, some of its themes are more chilling than ever.

Read Next

The Batman 2’s Best Villain Theory Is Close to Being Confirmed, but Should Be Saved for Part 3

Subservience Is an Unsettling Thriller About AI

In Subservience, Fox plays Alice, a lifelike android powered by AI who is hired by a family after the wife, Maggie, becomes ill with a heart condition and the husband, Nick, struggles to manage the house alone. While Alice is initially a helpful addition to the household things soon take a dark turn as Alice develops an attachment to both Nick and his family. That attachment deepens and grows even darker, leading to Alice’s dangerous obsession with Nick so much so that she even seeks to kill Maggie and replace her.

While the idea of robots gone rogue isn’t exactly a nuanced or original sci-fi trope, there are some other elements to Subservience that are of particular interest. The setting of Subservience is something of a near-future where lifelike androids have taken over much of the human workforce and a key element of the story is that Nick is dealing with the stressful situation of the androids and their AI threatening to take over his job, too.  The film is definitely an extreme scenario—we don’t currently have lifelike androids becoming part of human families. We don’t even really have androids at this point that are lifelike enough to pass for human. That said, the idea of artificial intelligence being integrated into every aspect of life to the detriment of human is a real and growing concern.

While Subservience is certainly a trope-oriented worst-case scenario when it comes to robots and humans, it’s actually a solid film. With a 95-minute runtime it’s a quick watch, making it perfect for streaming, and whatever weaknesses the story may have are offset by Fox’s strong performance as Alice. Alice may be the AI villain of this story, but you can’t help but almost root for her at times. It’s a movie that didn’t get nearly enough appreciation when it was first released and you have just a few more days to check it out before it leaves Netflix.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!