Movie Review: 'Implanted'

Implanted stars Michelle Girolami as Sarah, a struggling young woman, recently let go from her job. Needing money to find a place to live, Sarah decides to join a medical study that promises a $20,000 payment. By joining this strange experiment, Sarah agrees to have a device implanted into her back that will speak to her as if she had Siri in her brain that only she can hear. The goal of the implanted device is to help with mental health and self improvement by having the chip monitor health and mental conditions and tell the user if anything is wrong.

Initially, the experiment appears successful and the device known as Maxx appears to give helpful information early on including the location of a homeless shelter for Sarah to stay in and the number of hours of sleep Sarah got the night before, which, for someone with fewer bigger issues than Sarah, might prove to be helpful as more sleep does improve brain function. But, this would not be much of a movie if the implant provided about as much information as a fit-bit so let’s get to it.

Not all that long into having the Maxx implant, the implant starts to take over Sarah’s brain. The implant is becoming sentient and it wants to use Sarah’s body to kill the people who created it. It starts by exerting control over Sarah through causing intense pain and cutting off her air supply. Once it begins to get Sarah to become more compliant, the implant starts to threaten Sarah’s family, specifically her beloved mother.

This forces Sarah to follow Maxx’s instructions which include corporate espionage and several murders. Sarah’s only hope comes from getting tasered which temporarily shorts out the Maxx chip and gives her a moment of free thinking in which she can try to stop the killing and perhaps get the Maxx chip removed. Whether she accomplishes these goals is for you to discover if you choose to see Implanted.

Implanted was co-written and directed by Fabien Dufils, an award winning French music video director. I will grant Dufils this, he does have style though he lacks substance in this story. In pursuit of a hyper kinetic non-stop thriller, Dufils leaves no time for this premise to breathe and gather any depth. Sarah, as a character, is either miserable or robotic and there is simply no getting to know or care about her beyond this outlandish premise.

It would have helped a little if the Maxx implant had at least started out as more fun and helpful. If perhaps we’d had some fun with the implant, with it actually helping Sarah achieve a few things, that might have helped the movie gain some momentum before we are thrust into the meat of the plot where Sarah is murdering healthcare company executives on behalf of this malevolent machine.

Instead, Implanted becomes too dire too quickly. Sarah is miserable and upset with the implant within minutes of getting it and the Maxx chip with little prompting goes from how Sarah needs to get more sleep to murdering the people who created it in order to stop them from stopping Maxx from becoming fully sentient. It feels as if we are missing an entire important step in this plot, some kind of hook to invest us before the inevitable turn of evil fate.

Implanted is kind of stylish and star Michelle Girolamo, who is on screen alone for much of the movie, does a heck of a job holding the plot together, but there is just too little fun to be had here. Implanted is so bleak so quickly that you’re left listlessly feeling as if you missed the part of the movie that made it compelling. Implanted arrives on streaming rental services on October 1st, 2021.