Review: Puzzlehead

I'm not always a big fan of the bang-bang, action-packed sort of sci-fi flicks that seem to so permeate theaters these days, but give me a good, intelligent story with a unique premise and interesting characters and I'm there. The first few minutes in I was going to like Puzzlehead, but I ended up getting drawn into its story and liking it quite a lot. The film is set in some undefined, presumably post-Apocalyptic, typically depressing, futuristic reality (why is the future always so damn depressing in sci-fi?) where all science and technology resources have been redirected towards one common goal: repopulation. Other uses of technology are strictly verboten.

We're not really told the whys and wherefores of this in the voiceover intro, all we know is that Walter, the protagonist (or, more properly, one of the two protagonists) managed to squirrel away as much as he could before "they" could stop him, and he's now using said equipment to build an android version of himself - Puzzlehead, the narrator of the story. We also aren't told why exactly Walter would choose to name his super-sized Mini-Me a name like Puzzlehead, but we can suppose he had his reasons; at any rate, Puzzlehead's name, as we come to learn, is quite apt. Part of the process of Walter bringing Puzzlehead to life involves him electronically infusing the android with his own thoughts and memories, which is apparently a painful (assuming androids can feel pain, or at least electrical impulses they can translate as painful) and disconcerting process. Once the infusion is complete, Walter wakes up his wooden puppet and begins teaching him how to be a real boy.
Walter coaches Puzzlehead in chess and piano, and then decides it's time to school Puzzlehead in interacting some in the real world. On one of Puzzlehead's first forays, he ends up at the wrong end of a stick-up and sustains some damage to his electrical parts, so Walter does some fine-tuning to make the android more bulletproof. He'll later do even more tinkering to his android doppleganger -- tinkering that will have more profound moral implications than Walter could have suspected, but hey, that's half the fun in a sci-fi story. Man always underestimates the machines he creates to do his bidding, and it always comes back to bite him on the ass.

The only person Walter (who could take some lessons in social interaction from the guys in Superbad) really seems to care about is Julia (Robbie Shapiro), a woman who works at the dismal and poorly stocked store where Walter buys whatever supplies he needs. He seems afraid to approach Julia, though, or perhaps he's content to simply admire her from afar. But then Walter sends Puzzlehead to the store on an errand, and Puzzlehead rescues Julia, putting Puzzlehead, Walter and Julia into an intricate human-android-human love triangle that you just know isn't going to end well for someone.

Once we get to this (more interesting) part of the film, the storyline really starts exploring the concept of creating artificial intelligence, how and whether an android might grow to develop emotions and an intelligence separate from and uncontrolled by its creator, and all the interesting moral and ethical implications therein. Puzzlehead takes an interesting enough angle with all this to keep you guessing as to how it's all going to turn out, and the story keeps you intellectually engaged even through the film's flaws -- some places where the story drags, and where the dialogue feels stuck.

Puzzlehead is not a hugely high-tech movie, but what special effectst there are are surprisingly well done for what I assume was a fairly low-budget film. This is more pure science fiction than what we've gotten used to seeing from the special-effects laden blockbusters so prevalent in mainstream films these days, and it's refreshing to have a sci-fi film that feels a little old-school cerebral. The storyline delves, like a lot of science fiction, into the dicey ethical waters that surround the issue of artificial intelligence, whether an artificially created lifeform can develop feelings, the ability to make moral choices, or even a soul, and what obligation man has to the machines he creates to serve his own needs.

Stephen Galaida plays both Walter and Puzzlehead, and he does so with a flat, disaffected tone that at first I found disconcerting. You'd expect the android to be wooden in his delivery, of course, but why Walter? But then I realized that it wasn't just Walter who appears oddly disconnected; the other characters we meet (although there are very few of them) don't connect with each other in any real sort of human way. By the end of the film, I'd decided that this must be one of the ways in which the filmmaker had decided to convey the impact of whatever events happened to create this dismal, gloomy future Walter, Puzzlehead and Julia inhabit. At some point, Puzzlehead almost seems more human than Walter, and that, I'm sure, was also deliberate, and adds another layer of intricacy to the puzzle of this compelling story.

Overall, Puzzlehead, while not an action-packed, effects-laden spectacular, offers a compelling storyline and an intelligently written script that make up for its weaknesses; stick with it to the end to see what becomes of the little triangle, then spend some time mulling over the implications of the ending. Old school sci-fi fans, and even folks who aren't particularly fans of the genre, will find plenty of cerebral fodder here to satisfy.

Puzzlehead has played numerous fests, including Fantastic Fest; you can view the trailer and buy the DVD on the film's official website.