‘Superintelligence’ Does the Bare Minimum at Every Turn

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An artificial intelligence studies someone who is apparently the most average human on Earth to learn more about humanity as a whole. At the end of this guinea pig session, the artificial intelligence will take one of three options: save enslave, or destroy humanity.

Now, take five seconds to think about how such a movie would play out. Chances are you can guess at least 75% of what happens in Superintelligence. You may not have guessed it has an extended cameo from Ken Griffey Jr., but then again, maybe bits such as that one should have been left on the cutting room floor.

Doing the Least

Melissa McCarthy plays Carol Peters, the aforementioned “most average person on Earth”. Although, this designation is entirely arbitrary, as it’s given to her by an acquaintance in an interview for a tech position mostly as a joke. Somehow, the AI (voiced by James Corden — we’ll get to that later) turns on and locks itself onto Carol. That’s it. That’s the setup.

Also, how does one measure the “most average person on Earth”? Carol used to have a tech job before giving it up for volunteer work, and generally seems like a very nice person who is very thoughtful, considerate, and kind. She also has a really nice apartment. What about any of this seems “average”? It’s one of the many things Superintelligence yada yadas to get from one beat to the next. Steve Mallory’s script less so explains why things are happening and instead rushes to the next scene in the hopes of sneaking them by you.

You may be wondering, “why does this movie exist?” The robot/AI studying human behavior idea has been picked over so many times at this point, and Superintelligence never approaches anything more than the usual “humans don’t always act rationally, but out of love”. It’s never funny enough to compensate either. The entire movie has a feeling of being on autopilot. Nothing is very well-plotted — it doesn’t seem like anyone had anything particularly interesting to say here. Superintelligence just is. And it’s difficult to tell whether or not Mallory’s bland script or Ben Falcone’s flat direction is the main culprit. It’s sad when not even Brian Tyree Henry can save a scene or two.

James Corden Must Be Stopped

Since taking over for Craig Ferguson on The Late Late Show, James Corden has been in approximately 764 movies (or at least it feels like it). Most are animated films, musicals, or animated musicals. I’ll never begrudge any performer for being very available. Nic Cage was in six movies last year; Anthony Hopkins was in Transformers: The Last Knight. By all means, get that paycheck!

But for some reason, I have a mental block when it comes to Corden. Maybe it’s because (1) I associate him with some of the worst movies of the last few years (The Emoji Movie and Cats) and he hasn’t been in enough good movies to compensate. Or, (2) maybe it’s all the bad scripts that turn his strong personality into something a little more grating. (His rendition of Bustopher Jones may be the worst part of Cats.) Or, (3) maybe I just find him annoying. Either way, I shudder just a little when I see him attached to a project.

Naturally, he plays the voice of the AI in Superintelligence, and he still doesn’t do very much for me. In all fairness, this movie falls under category 2 above. One running gag is the Superintelligence’s struggling to grasp comedy, which leads to some ill-timed, awkward gags meant to draw out a laugh. They’re mostly just irritating.

However, the most frustrating part is the film relies on you to like James Corden for most of the Superintelligence’s jokes to land. It uses Corden’s voice in the first place because Carol is such a massive fan and it thinks it will calm her down at the onset, and every character to talk to the Superintelligence has to remark upon how much they love the actual James Corden. I honestly don’t mean to be nasty, but seriously, is he that beloved?