"Finch" was previously known as "BIOS," and I was curious about it for being the second feature from Miguel Sapochnik, who is famous for his work on "Game of Thrones." It was also one of a handful of high concept, original science-fiction movies that were slated for 2020 - Tom Hanks and a robot surviving the apocalypse together sounded ambitious and promising. However, "Finch" is very derivative, essentially "Cast Away" or "I Am Legend" with robots. And though it's filled with fancy effects, "Finch" also feels much smaller in scope than I was expecting.
Tom Hanks plays our primary human character, Finch, who has survived a solar flare that turned Earth's atmosphere into a hellish mix of high temperatures, dangerous radiation, and extreme weather events. Other humans have survived, but Finch is afraid of them, and keeps his distance, using the technology at his disposal to hunt for supplies during the daytime, when conditions are at their worst. He only has his dog, Goodyear, and a few small helper robots for company. Realizing that his exposure to the radiation is killing him, Finch builds an android, eventually named Jeff (Caleb Landry Jones), and charges him with taking care of Goodyear after he's gone. Circumstances force them to uproot from their home in St. Louis and flee toward the west coast in a camper van, as Finch teaches Jeff about the world and how to survive in it.
"Finch" feels oddly like a throwback to the '90s and 2000s, mostly due to the presence of Tom Hanks, playing boomer music and dispensing his gruff life lessons. I wasn't surprised to find Robert Zemeckis, the director of "Cast Away" and "Forrest Gump," listed here as a producer. There's also the characterization of an AI like Jeff as a sort of childlike, benevolent entity similar to Johnny 5 from "Short Circuit," or "E.T." I'm not saying this is a bad thing. It's nice to see a story like this that has such a strong streak of optimism after the last few years of grim apocalypse media. Hanks is as charming here as he ever was, and the effects work to bring Jeff to life is fantastic. I love all the thought that went into his design - baseball glove hands, a mouthless red-orange head, his clothing choices, and a few other surprises. You can see the influence of WALL-E, Chappie, and other cinema robots over the years, but Jeff is distinctive enough to be memorable on his own merits.
Still, though "Finch" runs nearly two hours in length, it feels shorter than it should be. There are these weird narrative ellipses and a rather abrupt ending that suggest some creative misgivings late in the game, or that the film's production was limited due to COVID or some other production trouble. The wasteland that the characters inhabit is very evocative and well considered, but at the same time it's extremely stingy with certain details, and naggingly empty throughout. If this were a smaller independent film, I wouldn't be so bothered, but this production clearly had the money for a few more flashbacks to the initial disaster. I'll note also that there were also additional cast members announced for the film back in 2019, but none of them appear in the finished film.
And that leaves us with a sparse, predictable, very well executed science-fiction buddy movie that is much more personal than similar projects usually are, but comes off as a little toothless for 2021. The title, "Finch," is a remarkably bad title, but it gets to the heart of what the filmmakers ultimately decided to focus on, which was Tom Hanks's character. His struggle and his humanity are lionized in a familiar, uncomplicated way, and if the movie had come out twenty years ago, I have no doubt that "Finch" would have been a sizable hit for everyone involved.
However, Universal sold the movie to Apple+, forgoing a theatrical release entirely. And it's hard not to think of "Finch" as another "Greyhound," a watered down echo of much better, more innovative films from an older era and style of filmmaking.
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