There's a massive robot apocalypse in Hulu's original movie Mother/Android, but it takes place almost entirely offscreen. The end of the world is a budget-friendly affair in the directorial debut of screenwriter Mattson Tomlin. Tomlin previously wrote the high-concept sci-fi movies Project Power and Little Fish. Like those movies, Mother/Android brings up some intriguing ideas, but it ultimately doesn't follow through with them, thanks, in part, to limited resources.

After a brief flash-forward featuring protagonist Georgia (Chloë Grace Moretz) burning photos and musing in voiceover about the process of letting go, Mother/Android starts on the day of the android uprising. At first, college student Georgia and her boyfriend Sam (Algee Smith) have other things on their minds. Georgia has just discovered she's unexpectedly pregnant. They head off to a Christmas party, trying to put the news out of their minds. In this near-future world, friendly human-like androids function as servants, serving drinks and cleaning at the party.

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A high-pitched noise suddenly emits from every electronic device around, the lights go out, and the androids are now no longer servants -- they're killing machines. Tomlin stages a chaotic, sometimes tough to discern battle between androids and humans inside the party hosts' house. Just as Georgia and Sam escape into the street to witness the wider destruction, the movie cuts to months later. Georgia and Sam live in a tent in the woods, hiding from the ongoing android threat, and Georgia is ready to deliver her baby at any moment.

Chloë Grace Moretz and Algee Smith in Mother/Android

At least half of the movie involves Georgia and Sam in the woods, while the androids are busy elsewhere, plotting humanity's demise. Like Little Fish, Mother/Android uses the apocalypse to focus on a single romantic relationship, but Georgia and Sam's bond isn't as engrossing as the central relationship in Little Fish. Further, the generic robopocalypse doesn't have the resonance that the memory-loss disease in Little Fish did. Georgia and Sam lovingly and playfully consider baby names, fight over the best course of action for escaping the androids, and make lots of dumb post-apocalyptic decisions.

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Mother/Android's representation of the android apocalypse more closely resembles a zombie movie than most stories about humans fighting artificial intelligence. At every checkpoint, Georgia and Sam are subjected to blood tests to prove they're human. On their occasional encounters with androids, the androids are depicted as relentless, single-minded killers, in constant pursuit of their prey. There's no explanation for how or why the androids rose up, and there are only a couple of brief scenes in which the characters reflect on how humanity arrived at this point.

Mother/Android feels generic, squandering any unique ideas that Tomlin brings up in favor of the same post-apocalyptic imagery and events of dozens of other movies. Even the eventual glimpses of the robots' true murderous forms look unoriginal, and the late-breaking addition of a specific antagonist for Georgia is thinly conceived and hastily executed.

Raúl Castillo and Chloë Grace Moretz in Mother/Android

Mother/Android is more of a tearjerker than an action movie. Tomlin has plenty of opportunities to pull the audience's heartstrings when his protagonist is a pregnant woman in constant peril. When Georgia and Sam reach the relative safety of a military compound, the resident doctor explains all of the intervening action in a quick exposition dump, describing what would have been the main focus of a different kind of movie. Tomlin isn't interested in giant robot battles, though, as Georgia wants to know how to escape above all else.

Tomlin's most intriguing idea is this inversion of the typical refugee narrative, with Americans desperate to escape to another country, and parents potentially being separated from their children. It's never clear why Korea and other Asian countries have been spared from the android uprising, though, and Tomlin doesn't devote enough time to the refugee process to successfully explore its implications. Instead, it's just another way to manipulate the audience's emotions, building to a shamelessly sentimental finale.

Mother/Android's entire success rides on its main characters. While Moretz gives a tough, committed performance, she and Smith have no chemistry, and many of Georgia's big emotional moments -- especially the final scene -- don't feel earned. Tomlin throws in some heavy symbolic elements that land clumsily rather than achieving the desired effect. Mother/Android strains so hard to evoke heavy feelings when what it really needs is more rousing apocalyptic action.

Mother/Android premieres Friday, Dec. 17 on Hulu.

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