Starring Joe Dempsie

Directed by Béla Baptiste, Richard Fenwick, Derek Franzese, Mikel J. Wisler, Eric Kohle, Dalano Barnes

Prime Video – Streaming Now

An anthology of live action short form sci-fi, exploring themes around AI and its emotional impact on human beings.

The streamers get a lot of stick for the way they not only suck up resources but act as gatekeepers, seeming to make it harder for developing talent to get a foothold, or any kind of platform for original work not based on ‘legacy’ IP. With that in mind it has been encouraging to see Amazon Prime bucking the trend in recent months. Last October on these pages I gave a shout out to micro-budget apocalyptic indie brit pic The Days Ahead which, while flawed in many ways, was heartening to see getting a leg-up courtesy of Mr Bezos.

Similar kudos is due for Merge, a compendium of six Black Mirror style AI film shorts by new or unknown directors recently added to the Amazon platform.

In the first and most intriguing – Angst – writer/director Béla Baptiste contemplates a society made perfect by tech, where the role of recreational pharmaceuticals has been flipped on its head. In a world without stress, far from escaping into a narcotic stupor, users are invited to take pills to reintroduce fear into their lives. It’s a wonderful idea but sadly it isn’t pursued beyond the statement of its premise, and there’s no narrative as such.

Next comes Richard Fenwick’s Soulmate, a familiar tale of someone falling in love with an AI avatar (played by Merge’s one familiar face, Joe Dempsie). We’ve seen this story before in many guises, but it’s nicely executed nonetheless.

Third is Derek Franzese’s When Unfettered, about a redundant synth discovering the dopamine hit of kindness. It’s sweet enough, but edges too far towards sentimentality to convince.

The First Time I Never Met You has a go at the well-worn territory of messing with the space-time continuum in order to deal with personal grief. There’s a spark of originality in there somewhere, but I’m not sure that Mikel J. Wisler has noticed that his film shares a similar premise with Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

On the home straight, Subscribed (Eric Kohle) explores another familiar theme with a rogue digital assistant holding its subscriber prisoner. Unfortunately the same story – with its roots in 2001: A Space Odyssey – has recently been told with far greater style and panache in Natalie Kennedy’s excellent Blank.

The anthology rattles to a conclusion with its least coherent contribution, The Man Behind the Machine directed by Dalano Barnes, which is something to do with robot consciousness, but to be honest, I couldn’t quite follow it, nor was impressed by its pedestrian production values.

So is Merge worth 75 minutes of your time? Well, while the lack of originality is disappointing, each story is short enough not to outstay its welcome, and it’s refreshing to see newer filmmakers having a chance to stretch their directorial wings.

Verdict: If you just want a taste, then the first two are the most effective, and perhaps, like me you might find yourself hoping that the anthology’s strongest and most original idea – Angst – will find a full length platform at some point so you can say that you saw it here first. 4/10

Martin Jameson

www.ninjamarmoset.com