‘Friends’ Star Lisa Kudrow Flames Tom Hanks’ Latest Movie for Being One Big A.I. Commercial
Lisa Kudrow isn’t a fan of A.I. fabricating the appearances of human beings, and she has a point. Anyone who has seen those slop images of A.I. Jesus on Facebook knows that something is wrong with the left phalange.
In legendary filmmaker Robert Zemeckis’ latest project, Here, he presents the nonlinear story of a single plot of land and its inhabitants spanning from distant prehistory to the 21st century. An adaptation of the 2014 graphic novel by Richard McGuire by the same name, Zemeckis’ Here stars Tom Hanks and Robin Wright as Richard and Margaret Young, a married couple who call the house on the plot of land home and raise a child together. And, since neither Hanks nor Wright conveniently has a 28-year-old offspring who looks just like them, Zemeckis and Miramax decided that the best way to bring the younger Youngs to life was to do an awkward, uncanny, The Irishman-style de-aging of the two leads using the artificial intelligence-driven VFX tool called Metaphysic Live.
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During her recent appearance on Dax Shephard’s Armchair Expert podcast, Friends star Kudrow criticized Here for selling its soul to the silicon devil, saying of the widely panned film, “All I got from it was (that) this is an endorsement for A.I.”
“Oh my God,” Kudrow said of her feelings toward Here, which has struggled at the box office and in critical coverage since its U.S. premiere on November 1st. "It’s not like, ‘Oh, it’s going to ruin everything,’ but what will be left? Forget actors, what about up-and-coming actors? They’ll just be licensing and recycling.”
Nevertheless, Kudrow couldn’t deny that the technology behind Metaphysic Live was impressive, even if the result was a creepy product demonstration disguised as a sappy drama film. “They could actually shoot the scene, then look at the playback of them as younger and it’s ready for them to see,” said Kudrow of A.I.’s VFX capabilities.
“Set that completely aside, what work will there be for human beings?” Kudrow asked before seemingly supporting many tech activist’s calls for Universal Basic Income to offset the massive job loss that A.I. will incur on human workers, including the millions of professionals outside the entertainment industry who also see A.I. as a threat. Said Kudrow, “Then what? There’ll be some kind of living stipend for people, (and) you won’t have to work? How can it possibly be enough?”
If Here really was one extended, expensive commercial for Metaphysic Live, it’s hard to see now how that investment will pay off. In the month and a half since Here premiered, it’s grossed just north of $13 million worldwide on an estimated $45 million to $50 million budget, and it’s not likely to see a late-release bump after earning so many negative reviews. Here currently sits at 37 percent on RottenTomatoes, with RogerEbert.com's Peter Sobczynski calling the movie, “A hollow and vapid paean to the whole of the human experience that has all the depth and profundity of a generic greeting card.”
In other words, the moviegoing world saw Hanks’ shiny plastic cyborg face and said, “Oh, no.”
