REVIEW: Superintelligence Is Subpar At Best

Superintelligence has a strong comedic cast but ends up as a miss. The flick follows Carol Peters (Melissa MeCarthy), a seemingly normal person who an Artificial Intelligence bot, Super AI (voiced by James Corden), decides to use as part of its experiment. The AI believes that if it follows a mediocre human’s life, it will be able to learn human emotion and be one step closer to understanding humans.

To do that, Super AI tries to fix what it views as Carol’s mediocre life by giving her money and materialistic goods. However, things in Carol’s life worsen when she begins to take advantage of Super AI. Now her once quiet life is one of chaos and spinning out of control. Add in Carol’s supportive best friend Dennis (Brian Tyree Henry) and her charming ex, George (Bobby Cannavale) and her once mediocre life seems destined for disaster.

Directed by Ben Falcone and written by Steve Mallory, Superintelligence lack the foundation to build a great comedic film. The film is slow and relies too heavily on the performances from the cast to make moments funny. At the end of the day, most of the jokes fall flat while Super AI just becomes plain annoying by the end of the movie. What’s even worse is that at some points of the film, it feels more like a promotional advertisement for James Corden than a comedy about a Super AI taking over one’s life.

The main casts’ talents are vastly underused. McCarthy, Cannavale, and Henry are all strong comedic performed, but neither the plot nor the dialogue give them the opportunity to shine. Instead, the acting feels just as stiff as the story. Corden does little to no acting when it comes to voicing the AI, essentially playing a bot version of himself.

Superintelligence is not exactly the treat viewers were hoping for this Thanksgiving. If anything, give this one a pass and turn on something else that will gobble up the time.

Grade: C-