Reviewed by: Jay Andrews-Tracy

Review Rating: 3 out of 5

Tau is a science-fiction movie about a woman named Julia (Maika Monroe), who gets kidnapped by Alex (Ed Skrein) who works for a billion dollar technical company, that uses humans to train the computer Tau (voiced by Gary Oldman) for interactions with humans and what their feelings are like.

Julia steals stuff from nightclubs to try to earn money so she can keep herself floating in the future with credits so she can pay rent, and so basically she can survive. Alex and the company pry on people who have nothing going on with them in their lives, and basically the low-lifes of society.

The training consists of tasks that the humans must do and if they do not follow the tasks they are put to death. Julia is a different human being. She seems to know how to program the computer to develop feelings so that she can try to escape the horror house that she is in.

She eventually escapes as captive and becomes friends with Tau, trying to teach everything that Tau wants to learn. She in response tries to teach the computer what the computer would like to learn for clues to her escape and why she might be imprisoned where she is at.

The movie is decent, the action is pretty good the story line is superb and reminds me of Ex Machina or HAL from 2001 A Space Odyssey. The story was written by Noga Landau and directed by Federico D’Alessandro. I think they could have explained some things better, such as getting to know Julia and Alex a bit more.

The house is a “Smart House” and has technology that humans have never seen before. I thought the special effects were pretty good, and the idea was interesting. The thing that I wish I would have seen different is the message about humanity and what it is and what it should mean to Tau. This is a Netflix original movie, and it only got a 5.7 out of 10, I do think people should give this one a chance, it is one of their better movies.