I had no trouble of following a very touching and sensitive story in this film.
I have seen other movies that involved AI, well, AI for one- and Chappie, the Terminator franchise, I Robot...
But this is the first time I have seen elements of "damnation alley" used in a basically "robot dog sitter" film.
Because basically, that is what this is. We think that the Finch character is making a joke when he is programming Asimov's four laws of Robotics into the robot, with the fourth law focusing on the welfare of his dog "goodyear", rather than "mankind".
The dog was Finch's sole focus, and he explains why to the robot "Jeff" about halfway through the film. What I found pleasant with this film was that the robot picked up humanizing traits from Finch as they traveled.
But at the same time we learn some unfortunate things about the man, Finch. Which explains mostly why he is doing what he is doing.
It is one thing to program intelligence and knowledge into a computer. What about compassion, what about common sense? This is another thing that provides a stark difference between this film and most other "robot" films.
"Jeff" is being taught common sense- and that lesson is learned at too high of a cost, much too high.
There is another aspect to this film: what would our world look like in the aftermath of a climate change event as severe as what happens here? Finch barely escapes a storm which is traveling at him at a rapid speed. One of the interesting things that he says about this world, is that the climate change, the solar flare, did most of the damage but we ourselves as people provided the killing blow to the human race.
But there is also a glimmer of hope in this film as well.
There were all kinds of stories in this film it's just that there weren't very many characters: it's just Finch, Jeff, the dog, and another dog robot, Dewey.
We really don't see anybody else but you can feel their presence.
There is also a little bit of Harlan Ellison's "a dog and his boy" here as well. Except that Jeff is less than successful in learning how to speak "dog".
