She’s a young woman from the wrong side of the tracks, making a living as a thief. But she feeds the pigeons that roost outside her window, so you know she has a heart of gold. That’s all the exposition you get before the young woman is kidnapped and locked in a cage with others society forgot. What a relief. Tau knows that it’s a silly, derivative, somewhat cheesy science-fiction flick, and it’s smart enough to do away with any unnecessary backstory. Tau is a game of cat and mouse, and it wastes no time throwing the audience into the game.
The young woman – Julia – is being held in order to complete a mad scientist’s experiment in the Big Bad du jour: Artificial Intelligence. Of course, this experiment will cost her her life. Julia must figure out a way to outwit her genius captor, and escape a house that is completely run and guarded by the computer Tau. Tau is fiercely loyal to its creator, but Julia discovers a loophole in Tau’s consciousness that could help in her escape. Federico D’Alessandro does a nice job directing a tight script from Noga Landau. The pace set by the no-wait-needed opening lets up only when necessary to give us whatever next plot point is needed. No scene is wasted as Julia fights for her freedom.
Maika Monroe is Julia and Ed Skrein is Mad Scientist Alex. Monroe was the impressive actress who couldn’t stop It from following her in It Follows. Once again, she smartly carries a story that relies on her ingenuity and resourcefulness in order to escape the unescapable, and once again, she impresses. Monroe also served as executive producer of Tau. I hope this is only the beginning of a long, successful career for this talented young lady. Skrein, on the other hand, is largely forgettable. Alex’s monotone and Norman Bates-style awkwardness come off as less creepy than just not trying very hard.
The driving relationship in the film, however, is between Julia and Tau. Gary Oldman supplies Tau’s voice, and I can’t help but wonder why. I understand that a little star power never hurt any movie, but Oldman doesn’t provide anything that any other actor couldn’t have given. Tau actually sounds a bit silly at times. It’s a personal preference, but if you’re going to pay for a star to provide a voice, I like to be able to recognize the voice. All the same, as forced as Julia and Tau’s relationship comes off, I have to admit, I enjoyed the interaction between the two.
I also enjoy horror in my sci-fi, and the first half of the movie gave me a good dose of it. It was genuinely creepy as Julia struggled to comprehend her situation, as well as endure the experiments performed on her. I even enjoyed the video game logic that helped Julia in her initial escape. The second half steers away from the horror, and it’s not as successful. The loophole that provides the key to Julia bonding with Tau is goofy and unbelievable. I would have liked an explanation as to what exactly the experiments were doing for Tau. Sure, it was all a MacGuffin in the form of technobabble, but Alex made such an emphasis about how important it was, I really wanted to know why. There’s also the problem of a Deus ex machina that relied on Alex and Tau forgetting an important character trait.
Tau is a good Friday night movie. (When it comes to horror, Friday night is for cheesy movies, Saturday night is for scary movies, and Sunday is for fun/family movies.) Watch this in a double feature with 1977’s Demon Seed, based on Dean Koontz’s novel. Robert Vaughn (in a bit of good star voice-casting) is the Artificial Intelligence that becomes obsessed with and imprisons Julie Christie. It doesn’t necessarily do a better job with a similar theme, but the two movies together should provide a fun, mindless good time.
Tau is streaming on Netflix.
