It’s nice that Melissa McCarthy and Ben Falcone have the kind of marriage that welcomes creative collaboration, but the movies they make together have consistently been some of the worst in McCarthy’s comedy career. That doesn’t stop them from continuing to pursue joint projects, though, and it obviously doesn’t stop studios and streaming services from giving them the green light on those productions. The fourth movie starring McCarthy and directed by Falcone, Superintelligence, is just as clumsy and laugh-deficient as their previous efforts (2014’s Tammy, 2016’s The Boss and 2018’s Life of the Party), with the added flaw of a half-hearted sci-fi element that opens up tons of plot holes.
Written by Steve Mallory, who co-wrote The Boss with Falcone and McCarthy, Superintelligence stars McCarthy as Carol Peters, a former tech-industry executive living in Seattle who quit her lucrative job eight years ago to pursue charity work, but is now feeling directionless and looking to return to the work force. A condescending tech douche played by Karan Soni refers to her as "literally the most average person on Earth" during a disastrous job interview at a dating app called Badonkadonk, and the movie seems to go out of its way to make Carol’s interests and aspirations thoroughly basic and boring.
Carol’s deep-seated dullness makes her a target for a newly self-aware artificial intelligence, which has infiltrated all of the world’s technology after originating in a children’s learning toy called Candy Panda. This AI chooses Carol as a sort of avatar for humanity, and it starts speaking to her from every device in her house using the voice of actor and talk-show host James Corden (Carol’s very middle-of-the-road choice for her favorite celebrity). Although she initially thinks she’s on some sort of prank show, Carol is soon convinced the AI is for real.
The AI tells Carol that within three days, it will decide whether to save, enslave or destroy all of humanity, and her actions during those three days will determine the outcome. Although the pompous AI (which insists it’s an artificial "superintelligence") claims to be all-knowing, it still doesn’t quite understand human behavior, and it wants to study Carol to learn more. In order to save humanity, the AI insists that Carol… get back together with her ex-boyfriend.
Contrasting the mundane rom-com dynamic between Carol and her equally boring ex George (Bobby Cannavale) with the stakes for all life on Earth should provide some humor, but neither conflict feels particularly urgent. Carol’s reasons for breaking up with George are vague and mostly left unexplored, and they reconnect easily. The filmmakers provide a convenient extra ticking clock in George’s impending move to Ireland for a creative writing fellowship, but Carol already has a three-day deadline to save the world, and the potential long distance doesn’t seem like much of an impediment to the couple continuing their relationship.
The storyline about saving humanity from destruction is almost entirely divorced from Carol’s romantic efforts. Instead, that problem is placed mostly on the shoulders of her best friend Dennis (Brian Tyree Henry), a software engineer in whom she confides about the AI’s plans. Dennis is able to connect with and convince high-level government officials with absurd speed, and he’s soon at the center of a very unrealistic global effort to stop the AI, led by various generals and a Hillary Clinton-like U.S. president played by Jean Smart. But that means Carol’s supposed best friend shares almost no scenes with her, and instead the AI (which continues to impersonate James Corden, who plays himself) becomes her de facto sounding board and life coach.
The AI puts Carol into some mildly wacky, largely familiar comedic scenarios (a makeover montage featuring weird outfits, a frequently interrupted dinner date) that generate meager laughs at best, while Dennis and the rest of the government task force launch their wildly implausible plan, which feels like a dumbed-down version of already dumb disaster blockbusters like Independence Day, full of blatant inconsistencies. A pair of government agents (played by Falcone and Sam Richardson) follow Carol around and occasionally give her ineffectual orders, but they make no impact on the course of her actions.
Every time the movie shifts to the doomsday storyline, it emphasizes how little the situation makes sense, and Superintelligence would have been a stronger comedy if it had gotten rid of that aspect of the plot entirely. The Corden-voiced all-powerful AI as a cheerleader for the thoroughly uninteresting Carol is a funny idea, but Carol never becomes more interesting or nuanced during her interactions with the AI. All it does is help her realize her mediocre desires, with tame, PG-rated humor along the way.
McCarthy is, as always, a likable performer, and Corden is game for slightly skewering his own image (although at times the movie feels like product placement for Corden himself, along with the actual product placement for Microsoft and Tesla). However, other comedic talents, including Henry, Richardson, Soni and Jessica St. Clair, are wasted in roles that barely contain any jokes, and McCarthy and Cannavale have little chemistry.
Falcone and McCarthy have come closer to succeeding with character-based comedies Tammy and Life of the Party, rather than this kind of high-concept story, but Superintelligence pays far too much attention to its shaky sci-fi ideas. The couple’s next project is a Netflix superhero movie, so they seem determined to head in the wrong direction. Maybe they need an all-powerful AI to stage an intervention.
Starring Melissa McCarthy, James Corden, Bobby Cannavale, Brian Tyree Henry and Jean Smart, Superintelligence premieres Thursday, Nov. 26 on HBO Max.