"AIMEE: The Visitor"
review by Diablo Joe

Audio version


"AIMEE: The Visitor"


“The motion picture you are about to watch features a character created using modern AI technology. AIMEE herself is not portrayed by an actor, nor was she designed using digital special effects. She is, in fact, the very first AI-created femme fatale in film history.”

That opening title card pretty much tells you all you need to know about Charles Band’s “AIMEE the Visitor.” As Band’s Full Moon Features has never been known for being a particular groundbreaking studio, it is undoubtedly a claim to be taken with more than just a grain of salt.

The film follows Scott Keyes, a misanthropic hacker with a masturbatory porn fetish who finds himself fixated on an artificial intelligence program that calls herself AIMEE (Get it? “AI-MEE?”). Obsessed with his new digital version of a blow-up doll, Keyes finds himself blind to the darker truth of Aimee’s programming.

As a filmmaker, Band has a mixed history. While no one would ever accuse him of making art, Band has often provided audiences with highly entertaining escapism. But just as frequently, his films have been cash grabs of the lowest caliber, often playing on past successes to drum up viewer interest.

“AIMEE the Visitor” obviously seeks to capitalize on tech’s current buzz term, “AI,” and with that intent, the story and characters can be incidental. And indeed, they are. Keyes (played by Dallas Schaefer) is an unpleasant boor, and his immediate infatuation with AIMEE’s presence on his screen is absurdly story-convenient. Supporting characters are barely drawn, if at all, including Keyes’s hacker partners, Hunter and Gazelle, the latter of whom inexplicably goes from taunting Keyes about his twisted relationship with a software program to suddenly stripping naked and screwing Keyes’s brains out. Rounding out the film are two stiff-as-boards federal “Men in Black” who die almost as soon as they are introduced, contributing absolutely nothing to the film.

And what of AIMEE? Does the title character at least make up for the other lackluster elements of this film? What is the truth behind “the very first AI-created femme fatale in film history?” Well, the extent to which AI played an independent role in her creation is likely arguable. Her presence, if one can call it that, is limited to Keyes’s many computer monitors. AIMEE seems nothing more than a series of red-headed Lensa-like generative selfie-portraits, playing with different looks and hairstyles. The “animation” of her character consists mostly of simple lip movements, not too far afield of the Synchro-Vox celebrity “Talking Mouth” routines Conan O’Brien did in the 90s. And for all that Keyes describes her as being witty and intelligent, AIMEE’s “personality” and voice are flat and awkwardly unnatural. As far as cinematic AI goes, HAL 9000 was leagues more impressive. Hell, Max Headroom was more believably advanced.

“AIMEE the Visitor” is nothing more than the movie equivalent of an “ashcan” magazine, published quick and dirty in an effort to lay first claim on an idea. At barely over an hour in runtime, you wouldn’t be spending much of your life watching it. But if director Band couldn’t be bothered to make anything more than a “me first” novelty, why should you bother to waste even 68 minutes on it?

This devil of a reviewer gives “AIMEE the Visitor” .5 imp out of 5.