Kimi is the latest film made by veteran Hollywood filmmaker Steven Soderbergh. Talking about Soderbergh, this filmmaker in his directing career already has a convincing track record. He has proven his expertise in handling various film projects with various genres with great success. Titles such as Ocean’s Eleven, Erin Brokovich, Sex and Videotapes, Logan Lucky, Magic Mike, and Contagion, sci-fi drama films that are now significant because their presentations have many similarities to the COVID-19 pandemic situation that is currently facing the world.
Kimi’s film features actress Zoë Kravitz as the main character. The actress, who will appear next month as Seline Kyle / Catwoman in The Batman, plays the role of a computer expert who must face a dangerous situation when he finds irregularities in the computer system of a client he is working on.
The film series opens with an explanation scene about the use of Kimi. Just like Siri and, Alexa, Kimi is a cloud-based voice service device serving designated users. However, what’s different about this device is that it includes interpretation of the sound stream which resolves response issues on the device to make it more ready to serve its owner.
During the COVID-19 pandemic in Seattle, Angela Childs, a computer expert who suffers from agoraphobia (anxiety disorder when in crowds-ed) accidentally finds evidence of a crime while reviewing the flow of computer system data from the client side. Trying to report her findings, Angela was met with resistance and complicated bureaucratic problems, as if signaling the girl to give up her intention.
Despite her involvement, Angela realized that she now had to face her greatest fear, which was to get out of her apartment and into the city streets, which were filled with demonstrators after the city council passed a law restricting the movement of the homeless population.
Interested in watching this film due to the fact that this is the latest work of Steven Soderbergh, inevitably thoughts ran through the mind of the author after watching it. This film tries to work many themes into the story. Talk about agoraphobia, COVID-19, technology, digital assistants, corporate espionage, personal privacy, data collection and more. However, the film only uses these themes as a backdrop, and never really develops them.
Kimi’s film isn’t really a bad film; the dish is shot well and Kravitz, who is believed to be the main spearhead, is able to display a pretty slick performance. However, Kimi’s film has a flat taste. Perhaps this is because the premise is simple and somewhat reminds the writer of the film The Net, which used to be starring Sandra Bullock, which carries a story that is not much different.
Soderbergh also doesn’t seem to be trying to inject anything new to make his newest film have different characteristics from other similar films. Making what is presented here is the same as the classic thriller style that has been made. This style is indeed effective for the presentation of this film, but feels repetitive and very outdated for the era of today’s films.
Kimi is entertaining, but the writer feels that viewers may forget what happened a few hours after watching it. Let’s hope Soderbergh can return to his best form to bring out another big film in the future that can make us chuckle again. We know he can do it.
Kimi films can be watched by streaming or on demand
