Simone Reviews

It has been a while since I have seen this flick and I should definitely re-watch it at some point. In fact, since I was really blown away by Andrew Niccol’s debut ‘Gattaca’ (in my opinion, it is definitely one of the best Science-Fiction features ever made), I was really eager to check this following directing effort and I even saw it in the movie theater. Back then, when it was released, it didn’t get much love and, I have to admit it, it wasn’t as sharp as ‘Gattaca’ was but I still thought it was quite enjoyable. The point, in my opinion, is that the concept was actually really interesting, it is just that the way it was developped wasn’t entirely successful. Indeed, there was a really nice cast (Al Pacino, Winona Ryder, Catherine Keener, Evan Rachel Wood, Jason Schwartzman, Elias Koteas, Rebecca Romijn) but I wasn’t so sure about the tone. Indeed, apparently, they were aiming for a satirical comedy but , even though the whole thing was intriguing, I can’t say it was really funny. On top of that, they had a huge opportunity to create a real virtual actress but they chickened out (in fact, the Screen Actor's Guild was apparently opposed as they thought the replacement of actors in ALL movies would be the next logical step). Still, in spite of its flaws, I still think it is actually a good movie and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you are interested in Andrew Niccol’s work.

Its the type of movie you just press play and start watching and wanting to know what happens next!

I am myself a multimedia specialist and it was pretty funny watching how Victor directed the digital Simone. I mean it still takes a huge team to do any kind of realistic SFX. The end too was very obvious.. the moment I saw the camera at the pier when Victor was dragging the box with the HD's, I knew he was going to be drawn into the murder investigation of Simone. Overall the movie was too unrealistic, but I did wait to see the end so I am rating it 3.